Electronic Frontier Foundation

Benchslap of the Day: Ninth Circuit Smacks Copyright Trolls

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Abraham Lincoln told a story about a lawyer who tried to establish that a calf had five legs by calling its tail a leg. But the calf had only four legs, Lincoln observed, because calling a tail a leg does not make it so…. Heeding Lincoln’s wisdom, and the requirements of the Copyright Act, we conclude that merely calling someone a copyright owner does not make it so.

– Judge Richard Clifton, writing for a unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit in Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn.

(Additional commentary about this interesting case, after the jump.)

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Court Says Trial Needed To Determine If Universal Music Violated DMCA With Dancing Baby Takedown

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Ed. note: This post appears courtesy of our friends at Techdirt. We’ll be sharing law-related posts from Techdirt from time to time in these pages.

We’ve covered the Stephanie Lenz / dancing baby / fair use case for years — but now it looks like there’s finally going to be a trial to consider if Universal Music can be punished for sending a DMCA takedown notice on a video of Lenz’s infant son dancing to 29 seconds of a song by Prince, which Lenz asserts was clearly fair use.

If you haven’t followed the case, it’s been argued back and forth for years. At one point, the court ruled that a copyright holder does need to take fair use into account before sending a DMCA takedown, but that there needs to be “subjective bad faith” by Universal Music in sending the takedown. In other words, Lenz (and the EFF, who is representing her) needs to show, effectively, that Universal knew that it was sending bogus takedowns. The EFF has argued that willful blindness by Universal meant that it had knowledge (amusingly, using precedents in copyright cases in the other direction, where copyright holders argue that willful blindness can be infringement)….

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Non-Sequiturs: 11.08.12

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Say goodbye to your security deposit…

* If Twitter reset your password yesterday, don’t worry. Looks like someone at the company just had an itchy trigger-slash-reply-all finger. [Consumerist]

* A disbarred Dallas attorney ended up in jail for allegedly trashing his office and drawing penises all over the walls when he got evicted last month. Apparently he’s also been watching too much Workaholics recently. [Dallas News]

* The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit on behalf of registered sex offenders, hoping to block a new California law that allegedly curtails their internet rights. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it. [Wired / Threat Level]

* Social networks: the newest part of George Zimmerman’s defense team? [New York Times]

* A useful new tool to help law firms in recruiting and placing laterals. [Attorney Search Group]

* Jared Loughner, who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords last year, was sentenced to life in prison without parole today. Here’s what Rep. Giffords and her husband had to say to him. [Althouse]

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Verizon’s Data-Mining Policies Are On A Whole Other Plane of Creepy

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Maybe I’m a Luddite for feeling uninterested in letting Instagram know where I took my last photo. Maybe I’m crazy for not geotagging my Facebook updates.

But here’s the thing: your electronic privacy is like handling a bad romantic relationship. If you give yourself away too easily, you might not be surprised if your partner — or in this case, your cell phone carrier — sells your personal information to make money and help other companies sell you more crap.

Case in point: Verizon, which is catching fire from privacy rights advocates for the way it handles (read: sells) its customers’ cellphone data. Amuurica, f**k yeah….

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Morning Docket: 06.22.12

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* Dewey still have some folks who owe us money? Yes we do. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Facebook will change its terms of service, specifically regarding the way it handles “sponsored stories” in order to settle a large lawsuit [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* A man opposing a Virginia attorney in a child custody hearing shot at the lawyer outside the courthouse. Luckily, he missed. [Gettysburg Times]

*The Fifth Circuit said yes, the law firm of Smith & Fuller is on the hook for $30,000 for accidentally releasing its client’s secret information. [ABA Journal]

* Recently released interviews with George Zimmerman tell his side of the death of Trayvon Martin. [New York Times]

*The Electronic Frontier Foundation is stepping in represent Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal and the defendant in this mess. [Electronic Frontier Foundation]

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