Attorney Evan Brown

September 29, 2017 Defamation, Section 230

Google and YouTube protected by Section 230

The case of Weerahandi v. Shelesh is a classic example of how Section 230 (a provision of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), found at 47 USC 230) shielded online intermediaries from alleged tort liability occasioned by their users.

Background Facts

Plaintiff was a YouTuber and filed a pro se lawsuit for, among other things, defamation, against a number of other YouTubers as well as Google and YouTube. The allegations arose from a situation back in 2013 in which one of the individual defendants sent what plaintiff believed to be a “false and malicious” DMCA takedown notice to YouTube. One of the defendants later took the contact information plaintiff had to provide in the counter-notification and allegedly disseminated that information to others who were alleged to have published additional defamatory YouTube videos.

Google and YouTube also got named as defendants for “failure to remove the videos” and for not taking “corrective action”. These parties moved to dismiss the complaint, claiming immunity under Section 230. The court granted the motion to dismiss.

Section 230’s Protections

Section 230 provides, in pertinent part that “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1). Section 230 also provides that “[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.” 47 U.S.C. § 230(e)(3).

The CDA also “proscribes liability in situations where an interactive service provider makes decisions ‘relating to the monitoring, screening, and deletion of content from its network.’ ” Obado v. Magedson, 612 Fed.Appx. 90, 94–95 (3d Cir. 2015). Courts have recognized Congress conferred broad immunity upon internet companies by enacting the CDA, because the breadth of the internet precludes such companies from policing content as traditional media have. See Jones v. Dirty World Entm’t Recordings LLC, 755 F.3d 398, 407 (6th Cir. 2014); Batzel v Smith, 333 F.3d 1018, 1026 (9th Cir. 2003); Zeran v. Am. Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327, 330 (4th 1997); DiMeo v. Max, 433 F. Supp. 2d 523, 528 (E.D. Pa. 2006).

How Section 230 Applied Here

In this case, the court found that the CDA barred plaintiff’s claims against Google and YouTube. Both Google and YouTube were considered “interactive computer service[s].” Parker v. Google, Inc., 422 F. Supp. 2d 492, 551 (E.D. Pa. 2006). Plaintiff did not allege that Google or YouTube played any role in producing the allegedly defamatory content. Instead, Plaintiff alleged both websites failed to remove the defamatory content, despite his repeated requests.

Plaintiff did not cite any authority in his opposition to Google and YouTube’s motion, and instead argued that the CDA did not bar claims for the “failure to remove the videos” or to “take corrective action.” The court held that to the contrary, the CDA expressly protected internet companies from such liability. Under the CDA, plaintiff could not assert a claim against Google or YouTube for decisions “relating to the monitoring, screening, and deletion of content from its network. ” Obado, 612 Fed.Appx. at 94–95 (3d Cir. 2015); 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1) (“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”). For these reasons, the court found the CDA barred plaintiff’s claims against Google and YouTube.

Weerahandi v. Shelesh, 2017 WL 4330365 (D.N.J. September 29, 2017)

About the Author: Evan Brown is a Chicago technology and intellectual property attorney. Call Evan at (630) 362-7237, send email to ebrown [at] internetcases.com, or follow him on Twitter @internetcases. Read Evan’s other blog, UDRP Tracker, for information about domain name disputes.

August 23, 2017 Copyright

YouTubers get fair use win in copyright suit brought over reaction video

Plaintiff makes videos and posts them to YouTube. Defendants took snippets of one of plaintiff’s videos, interspersed those snippets with their own commentary about the content of those snippets, and posted that to their YouTube channel. Plaintiff sued for copyright infringement. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing they were entitled to the affirmative defense of fair use.

The court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. It found that “[a]ny review of the defendants’ video leaves no doubt that it constitutes critical commentary of the [plaintiff’s] video.” It also found there is “no doubt that the [defendants’] video is decidedly not a market substitute for the plaintiff’s video.” Leaning on these elements – the first and fourth elements of the Copyright Act’s four-factor analysis – the court found in favor of defendants on their fair use defense.

Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, No. 16-CV-3081 (S.D.N.Y., August 23, 2017)

More coverage at TechCrunch.

August 4, 2017 Copyright

Toilet paper bearing Trump tweets a copyright problem?

This report from Fox News discusses toilet paper available via Amazon printed with Donald Trump tweets. It raises the question of whether the president would be able to stop the sale of this product and seek damages for copyright infringement. Assuming the tweets are printed without his permission, could he make a claim?

There are a number of issues to consider here.

The first is the long-kicked-around question of whether tweets are copyrightable. In other words, do they contain enough and the kind of content to rise to the level of originality that copyright law requires? One would be hard pressed to argue that a tweet not comprised just of facts is outside copyright’s protection. Though only 140 characters, there is plenty of room for originality. If a tweet is not copyrightable, then neither would The Red Wheelbarrow.

The second issue is whether the tweets may not be subject to copyright because they are a work of the federal goverment. Section 105 of the Copyright Act says that “[c]opyright protection . . . is not available for any work of the United States Government.” This splits out into a couple of other issues. Are the tweets from when their author was president? And even if they are, would tweets from a personal account be a “work of the United States Government”?

The article gives us an answer to the first question, which postpones the opportunity to answer the second one. The tweets are from before he became president. So there does not appear to be much standing in the way of the Donald fighting these on copyright grounds if he were to so choose.

But not so fast. What about fair use? Obviously the nature of the product is a commentary on the content printed upon it.

What a crappy situation. Maybe Amazon will just flush this product from its site before we get there.

July 10, 2017 Contracts, Litigation

Online terms of service restricting competitor access to website were unenforceable

If you are in the habit of reading online terms and conditions, you may have encountered a provision that looks something like this:

You may not use the site to gain competitive intelligence about [Provider] to compete with [Provider] or its affiliates.

A court recently held that a provision containing essentially this language was not enforceable against a competitor accused of accessing and copying website content. The court found the provision to be an overly broad non-compete covenant under applicable state law, and likely against public policy. For this reason (among others), the court denied the plaintiff website owner’s motion for a temporary restraining order against the defendant competitor.

The court observed that the restriction was without any geographic or temporal limit. Nor was the provision saved by the requirement that use of “competitive intelligence” be the subject of restricted use. In this particular case, plaintiff was complaining of defendant’s use of information on the publicly-visible portions of plaintiff’s website. Under Illinois law, in order for a covenant not to compete be enforceable, the covenant must secure some “protectable interest” such as a trade secret. For purposes of denying the motion for a temporary restraining order, the court found that a covenant restricting the use of such widely disseminated, freely available information is likely unenforceable.

TopstepTrader, LLC v. OneUp Trader, LLC, 2017 WL 2798397 (N.D. Ill. June 28, 2017)

July 5, 2017 Defamation, First Amendment, Unfair Competition

Reports to advertisers about website content were protected speech

Plaintiff sued defendant in California state court for trade libel and other business torts over confidential reports that defendant provided to its customers (who advertised on plaintiff’s website) characterizing plaintiff’s websites as associated with copyright infringement and adult content.

Defendant moved to dismiss under California’s anti-SLAPP statute which, among other things, protects speech that is a matter of public concern. The trial court granted the anti-SLAPP motion. Plaintiff sought review. On appeal, the court affirmed the anti-SLAPP dismissal.

The court held that the communications concerning plaintiff’s websites (as being associated with intellectual property infringement or adult content) were matters of public concern, even though the communications were not public.

FilmOn.com v. DoubleVerify, Inc., 2017 WL 2807911 (Cal. Ct. App., June 29, 2017)

June 1, 2017 Copyright

Instagram DMCA case over removal of copyright notice moves forward

Linking to the source will not keep you out of copyright trouble.

Defendant clothing company copied and cropped one of plaintiff photographer’s images, making plaintiff’s watermarked copyright notice no longer visible. Defendant posted the cropped version to Instagram and included a link to plaintiff’s Instagram post that contained the original image.

Plaintiff sued for copyright infringement and for unauthorized removal and/or alteration of copyright management information (“CMI”) under 17 U.S.C. 1202(b) (a portion of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

Defendant moved to dismiss the action. The court granted the motion as to copyright infringement, but denied the motion as to removal of CMI.

The court dismissed the copyright infringement claim because plaintiff only alleged that she had applied for registration of the copyright in the image but had not yet received the registration certificate. (We covered this issue in a previous post.)

But the court held that registration was not a requirement for the CMI claim under the DMCA. And the court also rejected defendant’s argument that the inclusion of a link to plaintiff’s work undermined any assertion on plaintiff’s part that defendant’s conduct was intentional. (The relevant section of the DMCA concerning CMI includes a requirement that the removal be done “intentionally”).

Gattoni v. Tibi, LLC, 2017 WL 2313882 (S.D.N.Y. May 25, 2017)

Image courtesy of Flickr user Igor Putina under this Creative Commons license. Image cropped.

May 22, 2017 Copyright, Litigation

Eleventh Circuit requires copyright owner to obtain registration certificate before filing suit

Although an author owns the copyright in a work the moment he or she creates the work, a court will not hear a case over infringement of the work until the work is registered with the Copyright Office. Here is relevant language from the Copyright Act:

[N]o civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until . . . registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.

17 U.S.C. 411(a). Since the Copyright Office issues a certificate of registration when it registers the copyright in a work, one view is that the statute requires a copyright plaintiff to have that registration certificate in hand before filing suit.

But that is not how courts have always applied the statute. Other language in the Copyright Act says that:

the owner of copyright or of any exclusive right in the work may obtain registration of the copyright claim by delivering to the Copyright Office the deposit specified by this section, together with the application and fee specified by sections 409 and 708 [of the Copyright Act].

17 U.S.C. 408(a). Notice how 408(a) does not talk about receiving a registration certificate – it seems to indicate that registration occurs simply by the owner submitting the application, fee and deposit. Some courts have read this portion of the statute this way, and allowed a plaintiff to file suit for copyright infringement after submitting the materials to the Copyright Office but before the registration certificate is issued.

So there is a split among the federal circuits on this issue, namely, between the “registration approach” (requiring certificate in hand) and the “application approach” (requiring only that the application, fee and deposit have been made).

Recently, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals weighed in on the issue. It sided with the registration approach – holding that the plain language of the Copyright Act requires it.

Plaintiff owned the copyright in online articles to which it granted a license to defendant website operator under a subscription agreement. The agreement required defendant to discontinue publication of the licensed content when the agreement terminated. But after termination, the articles remained online. So plaintiff sued for copyright infringement.

The lower court dismissed the action on defendant’s motion because plaintiff had not alleged receipt of the copyright registration certificate in the works at issue. It had only alleged that it had filed the applications to register the copyright claims in the works. Plaintiff sought review with the Eleventh Circuit. On appeal, the court affirmed the dismissal.

The court concluded that the Copyright Act defines registration as a process that requires action by both the copyright owner and the Copyright Office. It relied heavily on language from Section 410 of the Copyright Act that reads as follows:

When, after examination, the Register of Copyrights determines that, in accordance with the provisions of this title, the material deposited constitutes copyrightable subject matter and that the other legal and formal requirements of this title have been met, the Register shall register the claim and issue to the applicant a certificate of registration under the seal of the Copyright Office.

17 U.S.C. 410 (emphasis added). Bolstered by the dictionary definition of “after,” the court held “that registration occurs only after examination of an application necessarily means that registration occurs ‘[l]ater in time than’ or ‘subsequent to’ the filing of the application for registration.”

Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, —F.3d —, 2017 WL 2191243 (11th Cir. May 18, 2017)

February 20, 2017 Cybersquatting

UDRP complainant denied relief where disputed domain name also contained competitor’s trademark

A National Arbitration Forum panel denied relief to industrial manufacturer NSK (owner of the same mark) in a dispute over the domain name <skfnsk.com>. The panel found that the complainant did not meet the first element under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – the disputed domain name was not confusingly similar to the complainant’s NSK mark..

The case serves as an example of a panel departing from the ordinary determination that a disputed domain name incorporating the complainant’s mark as a whole will suffice to demonstrate confusing similarity.

The distinguishing fact in this case was that the other portion of the mark (SKF) is the trademark of one of the complainant’s competitors. The panel cited two other cases where complainants were denied relief in UDRP actions over disputed domain names containing both the complainant’s mark and that of another company. In NIKE, Inc. and Nike Innovate, C.V. v. Mattia Lumini and Yykk Snc, NAF Case No. FA1679233 (July 15, 2016), the panel denied relief to Nike over the disputed domain name <nikegoogle.com>. Similarly, in Dell Inc. v. Ionel Adrian Nicolae, NAF Case No. FA1683104 (August 22, 2016) the panel held that “Nvidia Corp. has not been joined as a Complainant in this matter and there is no nexus available through which Complainant can claim to have rights to the transfer of the <alienware-nvidia.xyz>”

NSK LTD. v. Li shuo, NAF Case No. 1683104 (February 16, 2017)

This post also appeared on UDRP Tracker.

February 16, 2017 Contracts

Florida court rules that online seller’s terms and conditions were not enforceable

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Beware the browsewrap.

A Florida state appellate court recently held that an online seller’s terms and conditions, appearing in a “browsewrap” agreement linked-to from the bottom of its web pages, were not enforceable.

Plaintiff, an online purchaser of defendant’s dietary supplements, sued defendant seller over liver damage plaintiff allegedly sustained from the products. Defendant filed a motion with the trial court seeking to enforce an arbitration clause in its online terms and conditions. Plaintiff objected to that motion, arguing that he never agreed to the arbitration clause contained in the browsewrap agreement.

The lower court denied defendant’s motion to compel arbitration, finding that the terms of the browsewrap agreement were not incorporated into the sales agreement. Defendant sought review with the Florida appellate court. On appeal, the court affirmed the denial of the motion to compel.

This was a case of first impression in the Florida state courts.

The court observed that in other jurisdictions, browsewrap agreements have generally been enforced only when the hyperlink to the terms and conditions is conspicuous enough on the web page to place a user on inquiry notice of their terms. (Inquiry notice, simply stated, is, as its name suggests, notice sufficient to make the user aware enough of the terms that their natural inclination is to inquire further as to what the particular terms are.)

The court distinguished this case from the case of Hubbert v. Dell Corp., an Illinois case in which the court found a browse-wrap agreement to be enforceable.

Here, unlike in the Hubbert case, the defendant’s website allowed a purchaser to select a product and proceed to checkout without seeing the hyperlink to the terms and conditions. The website user could complete the purchase without scrolling to the bottom of the page where the link to the terms and conditions appeared.

In this situation the court found that the online seller’s website failed to advise the plaintiff that his purchase was subject to the terms and conditions of the sale, and did not put him on the required inquiry notice of the arbitration provision.

Vitacost.com, Inc. v. McCants, — So.3d — 2017 WL 608531 (Fla.Ct.App. Feb. 15, 2017)

Ninth Circuit revives software download copyright infringement case

The main issue before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Design Data Corp. v. Unigate Enterprise was whether the trial court properly granted summary judgment in defendant’s favor on the theory that one unauthorized download of a copy of plaintiff’s software was a de minimis infringement. The court held that the grant of summary judgment was not proper and sent the case back to the lower court.

Defendant claimed that it downloaded an authorized free trial version of the plaintiff’s software. But plaintiff brought forward evidence that it did not offer free trial versions. And plaintiff found evidence of the installation of two versions of its software on defendant’s computer systems, as well as patches designed to circumvent the software’s licensing requirements.

The Ninth Circuit determined that on this record, important questions of fact remained to be resolved surrounding the downloading and use of the software. Importantly, the appellate court held that the trial court committed error in determining that any infringement would have been merely de minimis. It was a mistake to have granted summary judgment in light of “the overwhelming thrust of authority” that upholds liability even under circumstances where use of a copyrighted work is of minimal consequence.

Another interesting issue before the court was whether defendant’s distribution of output files generated by its contractor’s use of an unauthorized copy of the software was actionable as infringement. The court affirmed summary judgment on this issue. It noted that copyright protection may extend to a program’s output if the program does the “lion’s share” of the work, with the user’s role being so “marginal” that the output reflects the program’s contents. But in this case, plaintiff did not put forth enough evidence to meet this standard, so the appellate court let stand the grant of summary judgment in defendant’s favor on this issue.

Design Data Corp. v. Unigate Enterprise, Inc. — F.3d —, 2017 WL 541010 (9th Cir. Feb. 9, 2017)