by Paul Alan Levy Over the past couple of decades, federal courts have a uniform answer to the question whether state anti-SLAPP statutes applied when state law claims were pursued in federal court. Anti-SLAPP statutes give the defendants in cases brought over the exercise of free speech rights on matters of public interest, and certain […]
Author Archives: Paul Levy
The recent announcement of an FTC settlement with a company called AmeriFreight that was paying customers to write reviews, then trolling for new customers by pointing to its favorable online ratings, brings to mind the controversy a few years ago about the FTC's amendments of its advertising guidelines to apply to misleading use of online […]
by Paul Alan Levy I have blogged several times (for example here and here) about the efforts of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning to compel Yelp to comply with a Virginia subpoena to identify seven consumers who posted critical reviews on Yelp. Our principal concern about the subpoenas was Hadeed did not claim that the gist of […]
by Paul Alan Levy In a two-page per curiam ruling, the Fifth Circuit has affirmed the decision of Judge Sam Cummings of the Northern District of Texas to dismiss, on the face of the complaint, Lanham Act claims brought by Clark Baker and his “Office of Scientific and Medical Justice” against a blogger who created […]
by Paul Alan Levy An increasing number of ISP’s have come to see themselves as more than stakeholders in controversies about whether their users have so clearly exceeded their First Amendment rights that their identities must be revealed in response to court subpoenas. Twitter, for example, declined in the Macao Music case to disclose the […]
When a trial court judge responds to an amicus brief by reversing her published position on outcome of a motion, and begins her opinion with an expression of gratitude to “Public Citizen for its excellent and informative brief,” its author cannot help feeling a bit of glow. But Magistrate Judge Beeler’s opinion in Macao Music […]
by Paul Alan Levy The Appellate Division in New York has today affirmed the denial of a pre-litigation petition brought by Woodbridge Structured Funding seeking to compel Opinion Corp. to provide identifying information about the authors of two critical consumer reviews on its Pissed Consumer site.
We recently filed an amicus brief about the standards for subpoenas identifying anonymous Internet users accused of defamatory or otherwise wrongful communications in a surprising venue – the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The underlying case was filed in the Western District of Washington by Macao Music Group, an offshore […]
by Paul Alan Levy A trial judge in Texas has turned down a motion to compel Yelp to comply with a subpoena seeking identifying information about an unhappy consumer who complained about alleged misconduct by a Texas real estate firm, the Rhodes Team, and its agent, one Jeremy Wages, who allegedly did not stay in […]
A beer enthusiast blog carries a great open letter from a small microbrew company called Old Ox Brewery, responding to a trademark opposition claiming that because an ox and a bull are both bovines, indeed an ox is a castrated bull, consumers could be confused about whether Red Bull is somehow associated with Old Ox. […]