by Paul Alan Levy Judge Vincent Chabbria ruled that an anonymous Twitter user using the pseudonym “Mr. Money Bags” could not be identified pursuant to a DMCA subpoena, both because her display of copyrighted photographs to taunt a venture capitalist for allegedly spending money on the company of nubile young women was fair use, and […]
Author Archives: Paul Levy
by Paul Alan Levy The effort by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (a/k/a Jehovah’s Witnesses) to identify a dissident member, "Kevin McFree," through a spurious claim of copyright infringement has ended with a whimper rather than a bang as Watch Tower agreed to dismiss its copyright lawsuit with prejudice to avoid a possible […]
Do Copyright Holders Get a Free Pass to Identify Alleged Infringers? by Paul Alan Levy Suppose that, on June 4, 2022 the owner of a China-based Twitter account were to post this 2005 photo of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, with text calling for remembrance of the martyrs of Tiananmen Square. Suppose further that, […]
by Paul Alan Levy This is a sad tale of hypocrisy on the part of a group whose litigation over the past eighty-five years has set many of our most important First Amendment precedents. But over the past four to five years, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, popularly known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, […]
by Paul Alan Levy Late last year, Harrison Greenbaum, a New York comedian and magician, included Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos, better known in the magician trade as Criss Angel, who is, apparently, a very well known magic act, in an annual satirical review that he offers of major figures in the magic trade. A particular point […]
I first posted about this case about early last month. In releasing documents electronically pursuant to a public records request, a local government body in New Jersey made a rookie error: using software (presumably Word) to perform redactions in a manner that was easily undone when the requester opened the provided PDF documents using his […]
by Paul Alan Levy An important case about anonymous online speech is hurtling toward a decision in the Second Circuit. The situation is worrisome because defendants are so unsympathetic and the plaintiff’s legal claims seem to me very strong. The danger is that the trial judge’s dismissive treatment of the right to speak anonymously could […]
by Paul Alan Levy It’s been some time since I have had occasion to write about Mathew Higbee’s use of baseless threats of litigation seeking to wring undeserved dollars out of alleged copyright infringers. To be sure, many of his demand letters seek remedies for plainly infringing uses, even if his monetary demands tend toward […]
by Paul Alan Levy In releasing documents electronically pursuant to a public records request, a local government body in New Jersey made a rookie error: using software (presumably Word) to perform redactions in a manner that was easily undone when the requester opened the provided PDF documents using his own device. The documents revealed some […]
by Paul Alan Levy Our latest effort to defend the right to speak anonymously about issues of public concern brings us up against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Last summer, Kennedy spoke at an August 29 rally convened by the German far right to protest government restrictions aimed at corralling the COVID pandemic. Kennedy was, apparently, […]