Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce

September 14, 2023
SEC Argues For Interlocutory Appeal Over Crypto Firm’s Objections In Fraud Case

NEW YORK — A New York federal judge’s ruling “explicitly” contradicts a recent ruling in a similar case in the same district, the Securities and Exchange Commission says in reply to objections to its petition for an interlocutory appeal in a suit the commission filed against a crypto asset firm it accused of selling cryptocurrencies without registering them as a security.
September 13, 2023
D.C. Circuit: Publication Of Industry Standards Protected By Fair Use

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia correctly concluded that the noncommercial publication of industry standards for incorporation by reference into law cannot form the basis of a copyright infringement action, the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Sept. 12.
September 13, 2023
Award-Winning Writers Sue AI Developers For Unfairly Using Copyrighted Books

SAN FRANCISCO — Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, his wife and fellow author Ayelet Waldman and three other writers on Sept. 12 filed a putative class action in California federal court against Meta Platforms Inc. accusing it of copyright infringement and violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by integrating their copyrighted written works into a dataset it uses to train artificial intelligence software, days after they sued OpenAI for similar conduct.
September 13, 2023
Roblox User Says Discovery Subpoenas Correctly ID’d Doe Defendant In Libel Suit

ORLANDO — Information obtained via discovery subpoenas served on Roblox Corp. and Twitter Inc. helped to confirm that the defendant identified in an amended complaint was the Jane Doe listed as the original defendant, a Roblox user tells a Florida federal court in a brief opposing dismissal of defamation and trade libel claims over false statements made about her on the online gaming platform and Twitter.
September 12, 2023
Man: ChatGPT Disclaimer Can’t Transform Defamatory Comments

ATLANTA — OpenAI is subject to jurisdiction in Georgia based on its registration in the state, and disclaimers and terms of use are outside the scope of a motion to dismiss and in any case cannot transform defamatory comments into innocuous statements, a man told a federal court in Georgia in opposing the motion.
September 12, 2023
Biden, FBI, CDC Ask 5th Circuit To Stay Social Media Coercion Injunction

NEW ORLEANS — Three days after the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals partly affirmed, and offered a modified version of, a preliminary injunction barring certain government officials and agencies from coercing social media platforms to censor their users’ speech, the government appellants on Sept. 11 filed an emergency motion asking the appeals court to stay the injunction pending an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
September 11, 2023
Roblox Digital Good Purchaser Seeks Final Approval Of $10M Settlement

SAN FRANCISCO — A class action plaintiff moved in a California federal court for final approval of a $10 million settlement to resolve putative class claims that will return more than half of “Robux” that 8 million users of the Roblox online video game lost when the game deleted in-game digital items the users had purchased, allegedly in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL).
September 08, 2023
Federal Judge Dismisses TCPA Coverage Suit After Yahoo, Insurer Reach Settlement

SAN JOSE, Calif. — One day after Yahoo! Inc. and its commercial general liability insurer filed a notice of settlement, a federal judge in California dismissed with prejudice Yahoo’s lawsuit seeking coverage for underlying class actions alleging that it violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
September 08, 2023
Injunction Entered In Florida Trademark, Copyright Dispute Over ‘Masha And The Bear’

MIAMI — A federal judge in Florida on Sept. 7 adopted in full a Florida federal magistrate judge’s recommendation that the owner of copyrights and trademarks associated with the hit children’s television show “Masha and the Bear” be awarded a preliminary injunction while it proceeds with an infringement action against myriad online counterfeiters.
September 08, 2023
DOJ To Argue In High Court Over Tester’s Standing To Bring ADA Website Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court in its Sept. 8 order list granted a motion by the U.S. Department of Justice to argue on behalf of the United States at Oct. 4 oral arguments over whether a self-appointed “tester” has standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution to sue over a business’s website’s purported noncompliance with Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements.
September 07, 2023
9th Circuit: Pinterest Entitled To Safe Harbor On Copyright Claims

SAN FRANCISCO — Because there is no dispute that algorithms and other processes employed by Pinterest for displaying content “alter user-uploaded content to facilitate access,” the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the rejection of copyright infringement claims by a graphic artist and photographer against the style and design sharing website.
September 07, 2023
DOL Wins Dismissal Of ForUsAll’s APA Suit Over Cryptocurrency Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Saying a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) release regarding cryptocurrency is not final agency action and the requested relief does not appear “likely to redress [plaintiff ForUsAll Inc.]’s alleged injury,” a District of Columbia federal judge granted dismissal of the suit filed by a retirement plan service provider.
September 06, 2023
9th Circuit Nixes ‘Punchbowl’ Trademark Holding In Light Of Jack Daniel’s Ruling

PASADENA, Calif. — The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent trademark dilution decision in Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC led a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel to vacate its ruling in a dispute between two online-based companies over the “Punchbowl” trademark and designate the case for reargument.
September 06, 2023
9th Circuit Remands Google Play Antitrust Appeal For Likely Class Decertification

SAN FRANCISCO — In the wake of a California federal judge’s ruling excluding the opinions of an expert on which he previously relied in granting certification of a consumer class in the consolidated monopolization suit over Google LLC’s Play Store, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted Google’s motion to remand its appeal of the certification ruling for further proceedings.
September 05, 2023
Judge Remands Fired ByteDance Engineer’s Suit, Dismisses Partial Copyright Claim

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on Sept. 1 remanded to state court claims brought by a former engineer that ByteDance Inc., the owner of the TikTok social media app, violated California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by allegedly scraping other social media apps’ content and creating fake users to boost its platform, but dismissed the engineer’s claims against ByteDance to the extent they are preempted by federal copyright law.
September 05, 2023
High Court Told No ADA Injury From Websites Of Hotels Tester Didn’t Plan To Visit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Because a self-described tester had no plans to visit its place of business, a hotel chain tells the U.S. Supreme Court in its Sept. 1 merits reply brief that she did not have standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution to sue over its website’s purported noncompliance with Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements.
September 01, 2023
In Win For Meta, Panel Upholds Summary Judgment Of Patent Ineligibility

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Texas did not err in declaring that all asserted claims of a method of predicting web visitor “intent” when recommending webpages are ineligible for patenting, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in affirming.
September 01, 2023
Trade Groups Concur With DOJ That Texas Law Restricts Social Media Firms’ Speech

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Largely agreeing with an amicus curiae brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the United States, two nonprofit internet trade associations filed a supplemental brief reiterating their request that the U.S. Supreme Court find that a Texas social media content moderation law violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that it reverse a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that disposed of an injunction preventing the law’s enforcement.
August 31, 2023
Patent Board Stands By Refusal To Institute Inter Partes Review

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A request by Netflix Inc. for rehearing of a May decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that denied the streaming service’s petition for inter partes review (IPR) of an automated browsing patent was denied by a divided board on Aug. 30.
August 30, 2023
Nonprofits, States Urge High Court To Take Up Social Media, State-Actor Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of states, a coalition of nonprofit groups and a legal organization filed amicus curiae briefs supporting a conservative commentator’s petition for certiorari in which he asks the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify whether a state agency violates the First Amendment when it coerces a social network operator to delete users’ speech that the government deems disfavored.
August 30, 2023
Gambia, Meta Settle Remaining Discovery Disputes Over Myanmar’s Acts Of Genocide

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A three-year disagreement over whether Meta Platforms Inc. could be compelled to produce Facebook posts and messages of Myanmar officials came to a close when a District of Columbia federal judge approved the parties’ stipulation to enter final judgment and close the case in which the Republic of the Gambia had sought discovery to use in a proceeding regarding Myanmar’s acts of genocide.
August 30, 2023
2nd Circuit: Access Codes Are Coupons; Incentive Payments Not Per Se Unlawful

NEW YORK — A trial court employed the wrong legal standard when it approved a settlement between The New York Times and subscribers in a case over auto renewals and erred in finding that the access codes provided as part of the settlement were not coupons under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled; however, the appellate panel reiterated its holding in Melito v. Experian Marketing Solutions, Inc. and ruled “that incentive awards are not per se unlawful.”
August 30, 2023
Investor’s Daughter Asks Supreme Court To Decline To Hear Bespeaks-Caution Appeal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Following the death of an investor who filed a class action over a real estate investment company’s alleged misrepresentations in social media posts soliciting investments, his daughter filed a brief requesting that the Supreme Court deny a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the company, saying the company mischaracterizes the findings of a federal appeals court’s ruling.
August 30, 2023
SEC Requests Interlocutory Appeal In Crypto Case, Citing Recent Crypto Decision

NEW YORK — The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a motion to certify for interlocutory appeal in its case against a crypto asset firm it accuses of selling billions of units of its cryptocurrency without registering it as a security, arguing that the recent ruling in its case from a federal judge in New York that the crypto assets do not satisfy a long-standing test for securities “explicitly” contradicts another ruling on a similar matter in the same district.
August 29, 2023
AI Companies Say ‘Fair Use’ Protects Chatbot From Copyright Holders’ Class Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI Inc. and affiliated companies that developed the ChatGPT AI program on Aug. 28 moved to dismiss the bulk of two putative class actions filed against them by writers and copyright holders including comedian Sarah Silverman, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to plead copyright infringement as OpenAI never distributed “derivative works” and was allowed under “fair use” to train its chatbot with large datasets of text.