Litigation – Page 2 – Attorney Evan Brown

January 17, 2024 Litigation, Section 230

Section 230 protected Meta from claims of discrimination for taking down Palestinian content

meta section 230

Pro se plaintiff sued Meta seeking to hold it liable for allegedly removing certain “Muslim and/or Palestinian content” while preserving “unspecified Jewish and/or Israeli content” and for allegedly banning certain Muslim users, while allowing unspecified Jewish users to continue using Meta’s services. He brought a civil rights claim for unlawful discrimination on the basis of religion in violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Meta moved to dismiss, arguing, among other things, that plaintiff lacked standing. The lower court granted the motion. Plaintiff sought review with the Third Circuit. On appeal, the court affirmed the dismissal.

No “informational injury”

The court observed that plaintiff had not alleged that he owned, created, controlled or had any personal involvement with the removed content other than having previously viewed it. Nor had he alleged any personal involvement with the banned users. Likewise, he had not argued that he was denied the same level of service that Meta offered to all its users. Instead, he had argued that he was entitled to relief as a Muslim being discriminated against by having Muslim-related news removed while Jewish content remained.

The court examined whether plaintiff could establish standing under the “information injury” doctrine. To establish standing under the informational injury doctrine, plaintiff “need[ed] only allege that [he] was denied information to which [he] was legally entitled, and that the denial caused some adverse consequence related to the purpose of the statute.” It went on to note that an entitlement to information allegedly withheld is the “sine qua non” of the informational injury doctrine.

It held that plaintiff had failed to establish standing under this doctrine because he did not show that he was legally entitled to the publication of the requested content or the removal of other content. Title II does not create a right to information. And the statute could not be understood as granting him a right to relief because he did not allege that he was personally denied the full and equal enjoyment of Meta’s services. Moreover, plaintiff was without relief under Title II because the statute is limited to physical structures of accommodations, and Meta, for purposes of the statute was not a “place of public accommodation.”

Section 230 Classics

And in any event, 47 U.S.C. § 230 precluded the court from entertaining these claims, which would have sought to hold Meta liable for its exercise of a publisher’s traditional editorial functions – such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, postpone, or alter content. On this point, the court looked to the classic Section 230 holdings in Green v. America Online (AOL), 318 F.3d 465,(3d Cir. 2003) and Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997).

Elansari v. Meta, Inc., 2024 WL 163080 (3d. Cir. January 16, 2024) (Not selected for official publication)

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January 9, 2024 Blockchain, Litigation, Service of Process

Court says lawsuit can be served via blockchain

Plaintiff sued multiple defendants, including parties located in foreign countries, for claims related to trade secrets misappropriation, unfair competition and other business torts. Plaintiff sought court permission to serve the summons and complaint on these overseas defendants through alternative means, marking a significant adaptation of legal procedures to modern communication technologies.

The court, considering the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and international agreements, allowed plaintiff to use unconventional methods for serving legal documents. These methods included email, social media direct messaging, messaging via Telegram and Signal, text messaging, online publication, delivery to the foreign defendants’ attorneys, and a particularly innovative approach — service via NFT.

The court’s decision was based on several key considerations:

International Agreements and Due Process: Defendants were located in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Cyprus. The UAE and Singapore, not being signatories to the Hague Convention, had no international agreement prohibiting such alternative service methods. Cyprus, a signatory, had not objected to alternative service forms like email under Article 10 of the treaty. The court also ensured that these methods complied with constitutional notions of due process.

Efficiency and Practicality of Modern Communication: The court acknowledged the practicality and growing acceptance of digital communication methods in legal proceedings. It found email to be a viable option, especially given that defendants were associated with a website that discussed the litigation. Signal, Telegram, and text messaging were also considered effective, given the defendants’ active presence and communication on these platforms.

Service Through U.S.-Based Counsel and Online Publication: The court also approved service to defendants’ U.S.-based legal counsel and publication in online media outlets in Singapore, Cyprus, and the UAE. It saw these methods as traditionally acceptable and likely to inform the defendants of the legal action.

Innovative Use of Blockchain Technology: Notably, the court permitted service via blockchain technology, where a non-fungible token (NFT) containing a link to the legal documents would be dropped to the defendants’ digital wallets. This method was considered particularly appropriate due to defendants’ involvement in blockchain technology and their familiarity with its use.

This decision illustrates the legal system’s evolving approach to international service of process, adapting to the realities of global communication and digital technology. It highlights the judiciary’s willingness to embrace new methods that align with both legal standards and the practicalities of communicating across borders in the digital age.

CipherBlade, LLC v. CipherBlade, LLC, 2024 WL 69164 (D. Alaska, January 5, 2024)

Microsoft Edge privacy case dismissed for lack of standing

standing

A legal dispute involving Microsoft recently concluded with the dismissal of a class-action lawsuit. Plaintiffs had accused Microsoft of unauthorized data collection through its Edge browser, alleging violation of privacy laws. The court, however, ruled in favor of Microsoft, citing the plaintiffs’ lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution.

The Allegations Against Microsoft

The lawsuit centered on the claim that Microsoft Edge intercepted and sent private user data, including activities in “private” browsing mode, to Microsoft-controlled servers. This data, linked to unique user identifiers, allegedly allowed Microsoft to track users’ internet habits. Plaintiffs argued this was done without consent, breaching the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and various state laws, and claimed economic injury due to these practices.

Microsoft’s Challenge and the Court’s Decision

Microsoft moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing plaintiffs lacked the necessary standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. The court agreed, determining the plaintiffs did not meet the required standing criteria.

The core issue was whether the plaintiffs had standing, a fundamental requirement for a case to be heard in a federal court. The constitution requires an actual “case or controversy” for federal courts’ involvement. The court examined whether plaintiffs demonstrated (1) an injury in fact, (2) a direct causation, and (3) a potential remedy through court action.

The 2021 Supreme Court ruling in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez was key to the outcome in this case. This ruling stressed that not every violation of a statutory right leads to a concrete harm that warrants a federal lawsuit. This court, agreeing with Microsoft, found that the data identified in the complaint was not traditionally considered private. It determined that the collection of browsing data did not closely relate to a harm traditionally actionable in court. The court pointed out that data like browsing history and keystrokes do not carry a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Final Outcome

So the court found that the plaintiffs failed to allege a concrete privacy injury that would fulfill the requirements for Article III standing. The dismissal of this lawsuit highlights the complex challenges in digital privacy litigation and the difficulty plaintiffs face in proving standing in privacy-related legal actions.

Saeedy v. Microsoft Corporation, 2023 WL 8828852 (W.D. Washington, December 21, 2023)

June 13, 2023 Litigation, Section 230

Amazon gets Section 230 win over alleged defamatory product review

Customer ordered a scarf from plaintiffs’ Amazon store. Customer left a review claiming the scarf was not a real Burberry. When neither customer nor Amazon would take down the review, plaintiffs (the Amazon store owners) sued for Amazon for defamation. The lower court dismissed on Section 230 grounds. Plaintiffs sought review with the Eleventh Circuit which affirmed the dismissal in a non-published opinion.

Section 230 (a provision in federal law found at 47 U.S.C. 230 which gives legal immunity to many online services) provides that “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.” Because the lawsuit sought to treat Amazon (a provider of an interactive computer service) as the publisher of information (the product review) provided by another information content provider (customer), this immunity applied to protect Amazon from liability.

Specifically, the court held:

Amazon is an interactive computer service provider. Amazon’s website allows customers to view, purchase, and post reviews online, and therefore provides computer access by multiple users similar to an online message board or a website exchange system.
Amazon was not responsible for the development of the offending content. According to the complaint, defendant wrote the allegedly defamatory review, and therefore she functioned as the information content provider.
Roommates.com is not applicable, as the complaint here alleges that defendant wrote the review in its entirety.
Plaintiffs seek to hold Amazon liable for failing to take down defendant’s review, which is exactly the kind of claim that is immunized by Section 230 — one that treats Amazon as the publisher of that information

McCall v. Amazon, No. 22-11725 (11th Cir., June 12, 2023)

McCall_v_Amazon

January 18, 2022 Litigation, Trademarks, Unfair Competition

Old social media posts violated trade dress infringement injunction

The parties in the case of H.I.S.C., Inc. v. Franmar are competitors, each making garden broom products. In earlier litigation, the defendant filed a counterclaim against plaintiff for trade dress infringement, and successfully obtained an injunction against plaintiff, prohibiting plaintiff from advertising brooms designed in a certain way. Defendant asked the court to find plaintiff in contempt for, among other reasons, certain social media posts that plaintiff posted before the injunction, but that still remained after the injunction was entered. The court agreed that the continuing existence of such posts was improper and found plaintiff in contempt for having violated the injunction.

The court noted that the injunction prohibited “[a]dvertising, soliciting, marketing, selling, offering for sale or otherwise using in the United States the [applicable product trade dress] in connection with any garden broom products.” It observed that “[o]n the Internet and in social media, a post from days, weeks, months, or even years ago can still serve to advertise a product today.” The court cited to Ariix, LLC v. NutriSearch Corp., 985 F.3d 1107, 1116 n.5, in which that court noted that one prominent influencer receives $300,000 to $500,000 for a single Instagram post endorsing a company’s product – a sum surely including both the post itself and an agreement to continue allowing the post to be visible to consumers for a substantial duration of time. Interestingly, the court found that the nature of a social media post may be different from a television or radio advertisement that has a fixed air date and time. Accordingly, the court found that it was inappropriate for social media posts published before the injunction to stay online.

H.I.S.C., Inc. v. Franmar Int’l Importers, Ltd., 2022 WL 104730 (S.D. Cal. January 11, 2022)

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April 15, 2020 Anonymity, Copyright, Electronic Discovery, Litigation

Finding out who infringed copyright – identifying infringers

Need information about finding out who infringed your copyright? This video may provide some guidance.

Copyright owners of video and photos may find their works have been copied and posted somewhere else online and therefore need to take action for copyright infringement. But the first challenge may be to identify who the unknown defendant is. This video discusses (1) filing a copyright infringement case in federal court, (2) showing good cause for early discovery to identify the unknown alleged infringer, and (3) sending subpoenas. Finding out who infringed copyright can be a difficult task.

The federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction for copyright infringement cases. That means a state court will not be able to hear a copyright infringement matter. A copyright infringement case filed in state court will get dismissed because state courts cannot hear cases that are exclusively the subject of federal jurisdiction.

When a party has filed suit, it usually knows who the defendant is. But sometimes it is necessary to file suits against “John Doe” defendants. In the online copyright infringement context, the copyright owner will need to take early discovery. This requires persuading the federal judge that good cause exists for taking early discovery. To show good cause, a party will need to show that an actual person has infringed, that it has taken as many steps possible to unmask the anonymous copyright infringer, and that its copyright infringement case is strong enough to survive a motion for summary judgment.

Once these things are shown, the court will allow the plaintiff to send subpoenas to the host of the infringing content and to the internet service providers associated with the IP address that uploaded the copyright infringing content. Then, if the plaintiff is successful in unmasking the unknown defendant, the copyright infringement case can actually begin .

More information: Identifying unknown online copyright infringers: court gives guidance

April 9, 2020 Anonymity, Copyright, Electronic Discovery, Litigation, Uncategorized

Identifying unknown online copyright infringers: guidance

A recent case addressed the problem of identifying unknown online copyright infringers. Plaintiff sued some unknown “John Doe” defendants who infringed plaintiff’s copyrights. To keep the lawsuit moving forward, plaintiff needed to serve the complaint on the defendants. But this presented a challenge, since plaintiff did not know to whom it should deliver the documents. So plaintiff filed a motion with the court, asking for permission to send interrogatories and to take depositions that would help unmask the anonymous infringers. Plaintiffs sought to get information from parties including PayPal, Cloudflare and various domain name registrars. The court’s response provides guidance to parties seeking to learn the identities of unknown parties.

To identify unknown online copyright infringers: early discovery

The rules of procedure in federal court do not permit discovery requests until the parties have had an initial conference with each other. But they cannot have that conference if the defendant is unknown. So the plaintiff needs to send discovery requests earlier than what the rules generally allow. It needs the court’s permission to do so.

A court will not permit early discovery in every instance. But courts have made exceptions, permitting limited discovery after a plaintiff files the complaint to permit the plaintiff to learn the identifying facts necessary to permit service on the defendant. Courts allow these requests upon a showing of good cause.

What constitutes good cause for early discovery?

This court applied the three part test for good cause set out more than 20 years ago in the case of Columbia Ins. Co. v. Seescandy.com, 185 F.R.D. 573 (N.D. Cal. 1999). The party seeking early discovery should be able to:

Identify the missing party with sufficient specificity such that the court can determine that the defendant is a real person or entity who could be sued in federal court;

Identify all previous steps taken to locate the elusive defendant; and

Establish to the court’s satisfaction that the suit against defendant could withstand a motion to dismiss.

Early discovery was appropriate in this case

Under the first prong of the test, the court found that plaintiff identified the missing parties with as much clarity as possible. Plaintiff stated that those missing parties were persons or entities, and that those parties had been observed and documented as infringing on plaintiff’s copyrights. Thus, as real persons or entities, those Doe parties could be sued in federal court.

As for the second prong, the only information plaintiff had regarding the defendants was the existence of accounts relating to the operations of the defendants’ websites. Therefore, there were no other measures plaintiff could take to identify the defendants other than to obtain their identifying information from the parties from whom it was sought.

Finally, on the third prong, for identifying unknown copyright infingers, the court found that plaintiff had pled the required elements of direct and contributory copyright infringement. Plaintiff claimed (1) it owned and had registered the copyrighted work at issue in the case; (2) defendants knew of the infringing activity and were conscious of their infringement; and (3) defendants actively participated in this infringement by inducing, causing and contributing to the infringement of plaintiff’s copyrighted work. Since plaintiff had alleged each of these elements properly, this cause of action could withstand a motion to dismiss.

MG Premium Ltd. v. Does, 2020 WL 1675741 (W.D. Wash. April 6, 2020)

Copyright registration certificate was invalid because of inaccurate information provided to Copyright Office

Although the author of a work owns the copyright the moment that work is created, Section 411 of the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 411) provides that the copyright owner must register the copyright before the owner can bring suit for infringement. If there is no valid registration certificate, the lawsuit cannot move forward. A copyright registration certificate that is invalid can cause problems.

In a recent case from the Ninth Circuit, the defendant challenged the validity of the plaintiff’s registration certificate, and the lower court dismissed the matter on summary judgment. Plaintiff sought review with the Ninth Circuit. On appeal, the court affirmed the summary judgment.

The appellate court agreed with the district court that plaintiff’s certificate of registration was invalid because:

There was no genuine dispute that plaintiff knew that it included inaccurate information in its copyright application. Plaintiff falsely represented that the copy of its website it submitted was not how it looked on the publication date listed in the application.

The Register of Copyrights told the court that it would have refused registration had it known about the inaccurate information.

Because Plaintiff’s certificate of registration was invalid, plaintiff failed to satisfy the registration precondition under Section 411 to bring a copyright infringement claim.

SellPoolSuppliesonline.com, LLC v. Ugly Pools Arizona, Inc., 2020 WL 1527774 (9th Cir. March 31, 2020)

November 11, 2019 Governance, Litigation

Ninth Circuit won’t stop electricity cost increase for blockchain companies

Plaintiffs provide “verification and security services for blockchain-based cryptocurrencies.” Grant County, Washington decided to charge plaintiffs and others in “evolving industries” more for electricity. Plaintiffs sued and tried to get an injunction against the rate increase.

The lower court denied the preliminary injunction. Plaintiffs sought review with the Ninth Circuit. On appeal, the court affirmed the denial of the preliminary injunction.

It held that simple monetary harm would not constitute an immediate threat of irreparable harm that would be appropriately remedied by an injunction. Although a legitimate threat that a company might face bankruptcy or be driven out of business may constitute irreparable harm, in this case, plaintiffs failed to introduce competent evidence that they would be driven out of business because of the increased rates.

Blocktree Propterties, LLC. v. Pub. Utility Dist. No. 2 of Grant County, 2019 WL 5704281 (9th Cir. November 5, 2019)

October 14, 2019 Contracts, Litigation

Is a person who dies while using an app still bound by the app’s terms of service?

App terms of service said that arbitrator – not court – should determine whether arbitration is proper.

The family of a man killed on a Lime scooter sued Lime over the man’s death. Lime looked to its user agreement – which provided that disputes are subject to arbitration – and asked the court to compel such arbitration. The court granted the motion.

The court found that the agreement structure was not a clickwrap or browsewrap, but instead a “sign-in wrap”. Underneath the Facebook button one can use to sign up within the Lime app was a notice that stated, “[b]y singing up, I confirm that I am at least 18 years old, and that I have read and agreed to Lime’s User Agreement & Terms of Service.” The words “User Agreement” and “Terms of Service” were in darker boldface than the rest of the sentence, and they provided a hyperlink to Lime’s user agreement.

If found that a the hyperlink to the user agreement on Lime’s sign-up screen was reasonably conspicuous and placed the deceased on notice of the user agreement. The sign-up screen was visible on one page, and the hyperlink was in close proximity to the two sign-up buttons. Moreover, the notice was legible, and the hyperlinked words “User Agreement & Terms of Service” were in dark, bold font, making them stand out from both the white screen and the surrounding gray text. Based on these circumstances, the court found, a “reasonably prudent smartphone user” would understand that by signing up for Lime, he or she was assenting to the user agreement.

Further, the court found that compelling arbitration – even for purposes of determining the question of whether arbitration was what the parties had agreed to – was appropriate. By stating that the arbitration provider’s rules would govern the arbitration proceedings, the parties “clearly and unmistakably” reserved the determination of arbitrability for the arbitrator.

Phillips v. Neutron Holdings, Inc., No. 18-3382, 2019 WL 4861435 (N.D. Texas, October 2, 2019)