Late last week, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a class action against Yelp by four local merchants who claimed that Yelp employees were themselves writing false and defamatory reviews, and removing positive reviews, to coerce the merchants into buying the advertising that provides Yelp with its main source […]
Author Archives: Paul Levy
by Paul Alan Levy Readers of this blog may recall that Brett Kimberlin has filed a defamation action against two dozen bloggers and other defendants; Public Citizen is in the case for the limited purpose of defending the anonymity of one of the bloggers. Since that blog post, there have been a number of developments, […]
Ars Technica reported recently that Chief Judge Marsha Pechman of the Western District of Washington had ordered the identification ("unmasking") of hundreds of Amazon users who posted comments critical of the "nutritional supplements" sold by the company “Ubervita.” The article was completely accurate but the headline was somewhat overstated – Judge Pechman had only authorized […]
by Paul Alan Levy Take a gander of this image: do you think, or even suspect, that Philip Morris, the maker of world-renowned Marlboro cigarettes, might approve this image, or might indeed be offering it for sale? If so, you might well be one of the morons in a hurry that Philip Morris and Roberta […]
by Paul Alan Levy Ready for Hillary may have no more sense of humor than the NSA, but like the NSA, its leaders apparently know when the law is against it. Late last night, just before midnight in fact, we learned that Ready for Hillary had sent a letter to Zazzle retracting its contention that […]
by Paul Alan Levy CafePress has responded to our letter to the political action committee Ready for Hillary by agreeing that Dan McCall's Ready for Oligarchy parodies are protected by the First Amendment as well as by the doctrine of fair use; it is in the process of restoring the parodies to its onlne store. […]
by Paul Alan Levy Last week, the pre-campaign PAC promoting Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, Ready for Hillary, demanded that both Zazzle and CafePress, the rival print-to-order companies that designers use to fill orders for Tshirts and other paraphernalia displaying their designs, stop selling material displaying the following design: The design, created by Liberty Maniac’s Dan […]
by Paul Alan Levy Michael Chichester, an Arizonan who does social media promotion on a contract basis for various firms, was annoyed when he saw an announcement from Santy Integrated, a local advertising company, recruiting "social media interns" to help promote its clients’ brands on a volunteer basis. It was his belief — which seemed to […]
by Paul Alan Levy At a time when many federal agencies are moving to exert greater control over their names and seals, both seeking to monetize them as well as to engage in old-fashioned trademark bullying, it is nice to see that the Department of Health and Human Services has decided to pull back from […]
by Paul Alan Levy The DC Court of Appeals has reversed the denial of a special motion to quash a subpoena seeking to identify the anonymous defendant in a defamation action. The suit, Burke v. Doe, was brought by lawyer Susan Burke, who complained that her Wikipedia entry had been modified to include false statements relating […]