Posted on July 24th, 2008 by William McGeveran
Big news in London, where Max Mosley, president of the body that oversees Formula One auto racing, won a large court victory against the British tabloid News of the World. The case has garnered enormous attention in Britain, partly because it was seen as potentially an important decision about the balance between privacy and […]
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Filed under: Court Decisions, Privacy, Media, Uncategorized
Posted on July 3rd, 2008 by William McGeveran
What better way to dive back into regular blogging than to discuss the Info/Law implications of a naked blue anthropomorphized M&M in Times Square?
A recent decision by Judge Denny Chin in New York federal court involved two billboards in Times Square advertising M&M candies. The video animation in the billboards depicted M&Ms in various […]
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Filed under: Court Decisions, Privacy, Trademarks
Posted on May 15th, 2008 by Derek Bambauer
What does it mean if you invite John McCain to speak at your school’s commencement?
For one thing, it means your dean is smart enough to want news coverage with lots of shots of your school’s logo. But does it mean your institution agrees with any / all of McCain’s positions?
I was pondering this question after […]
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Filed under: Court Decisions, Cognitive Decisionmaking, Law School, Media
Posted on May 6th, 2008 by William McGeveran
The Oregonian reports that Adidas won an astronomical $305 million trademark infringement verdict against discount retailer Payless Shoes this morning. Trademark blogger Marty Schwimmer can’t think of another infringement verdict even close to this size, and neither can I. Most trademark litigators would consider any case worth more than $25 million a very […]
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Filed under: Court Decisions, Trademarks
Posted on April 30th, 2008 by William McGeveran
Thanks to the Concurring Opinions gang for inviting me back for another visit!
I will leave it to the likes of the incredible Rick Hasen and SCOTUSBlog’s Lyle Deniston — among many, many others — to talk about the important election law elements of Monday’s Supreme Court decision on voter identification in Crawford v. Marion County […]
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Filed under: Court Decisions, Privacy, Voting, Anonymity
Posted on April 23rd, 2008 by William McGeveran
The New Jersey Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision on Monday ruling that the state’s constitution goes further than the United States Constitution by requiring a warrant before the government can obtain subscriber information from an information service provider (such as linking a name to an IP address). Under controlling Fourth Amendment precedent, individuals […]
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Filed under: Minnesota, Court Decisions, Internet & Society, ISP, Intermediaries, Privacy, Anonymity
Posted on April 15th, 2008 by Derek Bambauer
My friend and colleague Noah Hall has just launched an excellent new blog that examines water law, with a particular focus on the Great Lakes. What’s he discussing? Fights over bottled water, the challenges of climate change, pending Supreme Court cases - all great stuff. Noah’s one of the leading experts on water law, as […]
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Filed under: Blogroll, Court Decisions, international, Law School, Blogging
Posted on April 3rd, 2008 by Derek Bambauer
The Ninth Circuit has just ruled (en banc) that the Roommates.com Web site is not entitled to immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. (Props to Eric Goldman for the link!) The opinion, by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, is typically lucid and holds, essentially, that Roommates falls outside the safe harbor because it […]
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Filed under: Internet & Society, Court Decisions, Social Networking, Digital Media, Software, Peer Production, Intermediaries, Filtering, Search Engines
Posted on March 31st, 2008 by William McGeveran
A new decision from a federal district court in Atlanta illustrates perfectly what I have been saying is right and wrong with trademark fair use doctrine.
The case involves Charles Smith, a rather offbeat critic who created two portmanteaus to describe the megalithic retailer Wal-Mart somewhat, um, unfavorably: WAL-OCAUST and WAL-QUEDA. He set up web […]
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Filed under: Court Decisions, Trademarks, Scholarship
Posted on March 17th, 2008 by Tim Armstrong
Via BoingBoing comes news of another big crop of United States Court of Appeals decisions being scanned and made publicly available by public.resource.org. They are scanning the entire Federal Reporter (First Series), which includes late-19th and early-20th century United States case law. Enormous PDFs (and even more enormous TIFFs) of the scanned volumes […]
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Filed under: Court Decisions, Internet & Society, Open Access, Digital Media, Peer Production