by Paul Alan Levy The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued an order signed only by the Clerk declaring that a significant free speech issue bearing on the rights of anonymous Internet users will be decided in a totally secret proceeding, involving sealed briefs, a sealed record, and without any […]
Author Archives: Paul Levy
by Paul Alan Levy An important appeal is pending in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals – the highest appellate court in D.C. The federal government served D.C. warrants on Facebook, demanding access to the entirety of 90 days worth of communications in three separate Facebook accounts, including identifying information. (Presumably, the reason why […]
by Paul Alan Levy Ever since Eugene Volokh and I started writing last year about the phenomenon of “fake defamation litigation” — lawsuits filed to suppress online criticism while ensuring that the person whose speech is to be suppressed never has a chance to persuade the court not to issue an injunction — the greatest […]
This article at Think Progress points to some worrisome waivers in the terms of service for the DNA testing service at Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com argues in response that the some of the concerns are overstated but that in any event it has revised its terms to meet some of the concerns.
by Paul Alan Levy Last year I discussed an attorney fee application that I prepared on behalf of a small company making canvas totes that poke fun of such high-fashion royalty as Louis Vuitton by scrawling the words “My Other Bag” on one side of the totes and placing parody versions of various luxury brands […]
by Paul Alan Levy With the signature of Governor Terry McAuliffe having been added last week, Virginia has adopted a modest improvement to its very narrow anti-SLAPP statute. The new law, SB 1413, is not nearly as strong as in the anti-SLAPP laws in California and other model states, but it has something that we […]
by Paul Alan Levy The Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, a coalition of nearly 100 consumer organizations on both sides of the Atlantic, will be holding its annual meeting in DC from March 19 to March 21, including a public forum on March 21 addressed to "A consumer agenda for transatlantic markets.” The program includes features officials […]
by Paul Alan Levy i-Geniuses is a Houston company that repairs Apple products; it especially touts its ability to repair computers suffering from liquid damage on a fast turnaround schedule. A number of former customers have expressed concerns about the success of the repairs, about longer-than-advertised repair times, and especially about their believe that the […]
by Paul Alan Levy Shiva Ayyadurai is a computer scientist who insists that it was he who, as a child prodigy, invented email. Although his claim has been widely derided by many of the major figures who were party to the technological advances that created the Internet as well as systems of direct communication such as […]
by Paul Alan Levy During the 2016 election cycle, the slogan “Keep America Great” emerged as a counterweight to the Make America Great Again slogan on which candidate Donald Trump was campaigning. A fellow named Andreas Mueller tried to capitalize on that development by reserving the slogan as his own trademark. The Trademark Office, properly […]