Judges know fair use and parody when they see it. Especially when it comes to South Park's "distinct animation style and scatological humor" as seen through the eyes of a 4th grade character. That was the conclusion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Circuit today (read…
Articles Posted in social-networking
Zynga, the online game maker of multimillion-dollar blockbuster games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and Words with Friends, sued French gaming company Kobojo today for trademark infringement over the company's Pyramidville game (see it below). At issue are Zynga's trademark claims to all games ending with ville, the French word for…
A federal appeals court in New York reversed a lower court ruling in Viacom's copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube and Google over user uploads of thousands of popular TV shows like South Park and 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." "A reasonable jury could find that YouTube had actual knowledge…
Facebook's and Mark Zuckerberg's lawyers told a federal court yesterday that convicted felon Paul Ceglia's latest discovery requests should be put on hold, and that Ceglia's lawsuit claiming a fifty-percent (50%) ownership stake in Facebook should be dismissed. Lawyers at Gibson Dunn were emphatic that the court should not "perversely…
Facebook filed its answer and counterclaims against Yahoo! today in the Silicon Valley patent battle between the social networking giant and the fading portal. Yahoo filed its patent lawsuit three weeks ago, and Facebook fired back a salvo of patent infringement counterclaims right back at the portal. Facebook claims that…
In an outrageous misunderstanding of students' off-campus free speech rights, an Indiana school district expelled a high school senior just three months shy of his graduation for tweeting an F-bomb from home at 2:30 AM. Austin Carroll says that he sent the offending F-bomb tweet from home, from his own…
Watch out, Facebook users. Mark Zuckerberg's social network giant recently modified the company's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (i.e., Terms of Service ['TOS']) to now allege that Facebook claims trademark rights to the word 'Book.' (Read it below) Oh, and in case you forgot, Facebook also claims intellectual property rights…
A new federal class action lawsuit (see below) charges that a host of well-known social media, app, and mobile device companies stole "literally billions of contacts" from users' personal address books by illegally 'harvesting' personal data on the sly, without their knowledge or consent. The 152-page complaint seeks monetary damages…
Facebook can be a nifty tool for spouses and divorce lawyers investigating suspicions of infidelity. Facebook itself can also tip you off to unfaithfulness by, for example, suggesting friends who are also married to your own spouse. One Washington State husband, Alan Leighton O'Neill née Alan Leighton Fulk, is learning…
The federal judge presiding over the lawsuit by plaintiff Paul Ceglia, the convicted felon claiming to own half of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook, just ordered Google to divulge Ceglia's Gmail account data and logs by March 5, 2012 Ceglia’s email accounts are at the heart of this lawsuit. Some were known,…