The Law and Business of Social Media
December 20, 2019 - Terms of Use, Web Scraping, Ephemeral Messaging, User-Generated Content, Copyright, COPPA

2019: Our Greatest Hits

2019: Our Greatest Hits

Here at Socially Aware we covered a wide range of issues in 2019. We reviewed an opinion reminding us that user-generated content posted on social media platforms is not necessarily freely available for use in other contexts, and a rare instance of a federal district court holding that a browsewrap agreement was enforceable.

We also examined some aspects of Internet law in Europe, including the legality of using “cookie walls” in the European Union, and the EU Copyright Directive’s impact on content-sharing service providers’ liability for copyright-infringing content.

And, as we’ve done in past years, we revisited the scope of the “safe harbor” that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides again, again, and again.

But none of those topics—except the CDA’s Section 230—are on our list of the top-ten most read articles of 2019. Here are the pieces that made the cut:

  1. The Company Who Cried “General Audience”: Google and YouTube to Pay $170 Million for Alleged COPPA Violations
  2. How to Comply with the Revised Ephemeral-Messaging Provision in the DOJ’s Corporate Enforcement Policy
  3. By Winning Motion to Dismiss, Supermodel Loses Chance to Clarify Whether She Can Lawfully Post Photos of Herself to Social Media
  4. Will the Music Industry Continue To Win Its Copyright Battle Against ISPs?
  5. Time to Hit Pause: Copyright Infringement on User-Generated Platforms – When Is the Platform Provider Liable for Damages?
  6. The Meme Generation: Social Media Platforms Address Content Curation
  7. Court Holds That Arbitration Clause in “Hybridwrap” Terms Is Unenforceable
  8. Insta-Mural Infringement: Public Art in Instagram Ad Leads to Copyright Claim
  9. California Court Finds Section 230 Protects Decision to Suspend and Ban Twitter Account
  10. Ninth Circuit’s LinkedIn Decision Does Not Greenlight the Unauthorized Web Scraping of Public Websites