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James Pooley
IP Watchdog
Sept. 25, 2019

The spectacular failure of blood-testing firm Theranos is the subject of a riveting book, Bad Blood by investigative reporter John Carreyrou, and an engaging documentary, “The Inventor” on HBO, focusing on Elizabeth Holmes, the once-celebrated wunderkind who dropped out of Stanford at age 19 to “change the world” with a device that would perform hundreds of diagnostic tests with a few drops of blood from a finger stick. . . But even the Theranos story doesn’t mean that trade secret law is inherently dangerous. Consider Apple, one of the world’s most secretive companies. (Holmes famously modeled her clothing and business habits after Steve Jobs.) Apple has consistently used NDAs and secrecy management to protect products under development, to great effect when they are ultimately unveiled, all without touting non-existent technology. And it’s easy to imagine how Theranos might never have happened if investors and business partners had been less credulous and more insistent to understand the technology.

The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/09/25/dark-side-secrecy-theranos-can-teach-us-trade-secrets-regulation-innovation/id=113907/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Dawn Mertineit & Dallin Wilson
LexBlog
September 27, 2019

In an a recently published opinion, the Ninth Circuit answered the question whether “LinkedIn, the professional networking website, [may] prevent a competitor, hiQ, from collecting and using information that LinkedIn users have shared on their public profiles, available for viewing by anyone with a web browser?” In affirming the trial court’s injunction enjoining LinkedIn from blocking hiQ’s access to its users’ public profiles, the Ninth Circuit held, among other things, that hiQ’s scraping did not amount to accessing LinkedIn’s users’ data “without authorization,” in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), because the data hiQ was accessing was publicly available and therefore did not fall within the scope of the CFAA.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.lexblog.com/2019/09/27/9th-circuit-takes-narrow-view-of-the-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act-in-linkedin-data-scraping-case/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Tim Geigner
Tech Dirt
Sept. 27 2019

Those of you familiar with Adland will know just how useful and interesting a site it was for anyone interested in the recent history of commercial advertising. Started in 1996, the site served as a repository of commercials and a place that commented on ads and their impact on the advertising world. Cool concept. Adland has also made a fair amount of noise in being pro-copyright, dismissive of the concepts of “free” anything, and has on at least one occasion given Techdirt some shit for our stances, in this case on allowing users to turn off ads on our site.

None of that changes the fact, however, that it’s a very real loss that the site has decided to shut down after its host complied with a bullshit DMCA notice from Bridgestone Tires over its hosting of an old commercial and the use of the Bridgestone name in commenting on that commercial.

So, I’m shutting down Adland right now. Why? Because the server host (for the webserver, not the data) just gave us 24 hours to leave. To “remove the domain adland.tv from our network within 24 hours” Why are they requesting this? Because Amy Tindell at Holland & Hart LLP in Boulder CO is demanding we remove a Thai Bridgestone ad from the archives. Remember “a Dog’s life”? The ad from BBDO Bangkok that won silver in the Asia-Pacific Adfest in 2003? Yes, it’s that one. They also claim that by writing the name “Bridgestone” we are infringing on Bridgestine’s trademark. And that is why we are unceremoniously thrown off our web server host with a demand to get out in 24 hours.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190927/09415043076/adland-shuts-down-after-web-host-complies-with-bullshit-dmca-notice.shtml Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Glyn Moody
Tech Dirt
March 4, 2019
As Techdirt has reported over the years, the move to open access, whereby anyone can read academic papers for free, is proving a long, hard journey. However, the victories are starting to build up, and here’s another one that could have important wider ramifications for open access, especially in the US:

As a leader in the global movement toward open access to publicly funded research, the University of California is taking a firm stand by deciding not to renew its subscriptions with Elsevier. Despite months of contract negotiations, Elsevier was unwilling to meet UC’s key goal: securing universal open access to UC research while containing the rapidly escalating costs associated with for-profit journals.

In negotiating with Elsevier, UC aimed to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery by ensuring that research produced by UC’s 10 campuses — which accounts for nearly 10 percent of all U.S. publishing output — would be immediately available to the world, without cost to the reader. Under Elsevier’s proposed terms, the publisher would have charged UC authors large publishing fees on top of the university’s multi-million dollar subscription, resulting in much greater cost to the university and much higher profits for Elsevier.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190304/09220141728/big-win-open-access-as-university-california-cancels-all-elsevier-subscriptions-worth-11-million-dollars-year.shtml Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

J. Alexander Lawrence on
LexBlog
September 5, 2019
A recent Second Circuit decision makes clear that the safe harbor that social media and other Internet companies enjoy under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act broadly applies to a wide variety of claims.

When you think about the Section 230 safe harbor, don’t just think defamation or other similar state law claims. Consider whether the claim—be it federal, state, local, or foreign—seeks to hold a party that publishes third-party content on the Internet responsible for publishing the content. If, after stripping it all down, this is the crux of the cause of action, the safe harbor should apply (absent a few statutory exclusions discussed below). The safe harbor should apply even if the party uses its discretion as a publisher in deciding how best to target its audience or to display the information provided by third parties.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.lexblog.com/2019/09/05/safe-harbor-in-section-230-of-the-communications-decency-act-applies-to-wide-variety-of-claims https://www.lexblog.com/2019/09/05/safe-harbor-in-section-230-of-the-communications-decency-act-applies-to-wide-variety-of-claimsClicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Eric Goldman
Technology & Marketing Law Blog
September 6, 2019

The court summarizes the facts:

King alleges Facebook removed multiple posts by him, and temporarily suspended his Facebook access on several occasions in 2018, for posts that Facebook deemed a violation of its terms of service (“ToS”). The crux of his claim is that Facebook has violated its ToS in removing his posts and suspending his account, and that Facebook treats black activists and their posts differently than it does other groups, particularly white supremacists and certain “hate groups.”

This is an easy Section 230 dismissal:

• ICS Provider: King admitted.
• Publisher/Speaker claims: Yes, because each claim “is based on Facebook’s provision of the service for use by others or its moderator decisions on which posts to remove or not and which accounts to suspend or not” (cites to Brittain v. Twitter and Fields v. Twitter)
• Third-party content: “all of King’s allegations rest on treatment of speakers (who make posts or otherwise provide content) and differential treatment of specific posts made either by himself or by other Facebook users”

Case citation: King v. Facebook, Inc., 3:19-cv-01987-WHO (N.D. Cal. Sept. 5, 2019)

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The content in this post was found at https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2019/09/section-230-applies-to-facebooks-post-removals-and-account-suspensions-king-v-facebook.htm Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Robert Hough
LexBlog
August 22, 2019

As real-world celebrities continue to expand the reach of their persona into the digital realm, the potential benefit for advertisers, game developers and esports event promoters is exceedingly high. But with increased opportunity comes increased risk.A New York Supreme Court recently addressed this risk when it construed the State’s right of publicity statute[1] in a dispute over an NBA 2K18 video game avatar. In Champion v. Take Two Interactive Software, Inc., celebrity basketball entertainer Phillip “Hot Sauce” Champion sued the video game developer, alleging violation of his right to privacy for Take-Two’s use of his name and likeness. The Court ultimately dismissed the lawsuit, but not before it provided a helpful discussion of New York’s publicity statute and its modern application to the esports industry.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.lexblog.com/2019/08/22/video-game-avatar Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Mike Masnick
Tech Dirt
August 22, 2019

Nearly a decade ago, we wrote a bunch about an excellent book called Copyfraud, by law professor Jason Mazzone, which went into great detail about how the legacy entertainment industry companies have used copyright in ways that are clearly against copyright’s intent — to the point that they border on fraud. The concept of copyfraud should be referred to more frequently, and here’s a perfect example. Just a couple months ago, we wrote about the amazing social media account of Jimmy O’Brien, who goes by @Jomboy_ on Twitter. He’s combined his love of baseball, his video editing skills, his ability to read lips incredibly well, and with a sarcastic, dry sense of humor to make a ton of amazing videos about various things happening in baseball. We highlighted a bunch last time around and his profile has only grown a lot since then, including among Major League Baseball players.

About a month after that post, Jomboy may have had his biggest moment so far, in putting together a truly amazing video of NY Yankees manager Aaron Boone getting ejected — following a bunch of players and Boone arguing with a young umpire over some bad calls. What took the video from normal great to amazing was that it revealed exactly what Boone was saying to the ump during their argument thanks to a bunch of “hot mics” from the broadcast. That allowed us to learn a lot more about this argument than anyone normally does in watching a manager scream at an ump:

That video alone went crazy viral and launched an even more viral meme in the phrase “fucking savages,” that is now on tons of t-shirts. Yankee fans have embraced it. The players have embraced it. By any stretch of the imagination, this was actually great for the game of baseball.

So, of course, Major League Baseball wants to kill it. Because that’s what MLB does. MLB’s head of discipline (and a former Yankee manager himself), Joe Torre is apparently really really upset about these hot mic videos that have gotten fans so excited about the game. Because how dare fans learn about the personalities of the people in the game.=

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The content in this post was found at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190815/22332942792/why-is-mlb-claiming-revenue-obviously-fair-use-videos-youtube.shtml Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com