Webscraping a Publicly Available Database May Constitute Trade Secret Misappropriation
- Is scraping data from a publicly available website trade secret misappropriation? Based on a new opinion from the Eleventh Circuit, It might be. In Compulife Software, Inc. v. Newman , Compulife Software , a life insurance quote database service alleged that one of its... ›
S.D.N.Y.: Public Display of Embedded Instagram Photo Does Not Infringe Copyright
By: Aaron P. Rubin
A federal district court in New York held that a photographer failed to state a claim against digital-media website Mashable for copyright infringement of a photo that Mashable embedded on its website by using Instagram’s application programming interface (API). The decision turned on Instagram’s... ›Social Links: Biden’s stance on CDA §230; liability for user-generated content; Twitter’s process for reviewing Trump’s tweets
By: Anthony M. Ramirez
A federal district court in Illinois allowed claims for vicarious and direct copyright infringement to proceed against an employee of the Chicago Cubs Baseball Club for retweeting a third-party tweet containing the plaintiff’s copyrighted material. Read the opinion. Thinking of backing Biden in November? Would... ›Clearview AI and the Legal Challenges Facing Facial Recognition Databases
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
Every day, social media users upload millions of images to their accounts; each day 350 million photos are uploaded to Facebook alone. Many social media websites make users’ information and images available to anyone with a web browser. The wealth of public information available... ›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... ›Will the Music Industry Continue To Win Its Copyright Battle Against ISPs?
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
For the last twenty years, the music industry has been in a pitched battle to combat unauthorized downloading of music. Initially, the industry focused on filing lawsuits to shut down services that offered peer-to-peer or similar platforms, such as Napster , Aimster and Grokster.... ›Insta-Mural Infringement: Public Art in Instagram Ad Leads to Copyright Claim
By: Aaron P. Rubin
As regular readers of Socially Aware already know, there are many potential traps for companies that use photographs or other content without authorization from the copyright owners. For example, companies have faced copyright infringement claims based on use of photos pulled from Twitter. Claims... ›The Meme Generation: Social Media Platforms Address Content Curation
By: Aaron P. Rubin
It is likely no surprise to regular readers of Socially Aware that posting content to social media can, in some cases, generate significant income. But those who make their living on social media may find their livelihood threatened if they fail to comply with... ›By Winning Motion to Dismiss, Supermodel Loses Chance to Clarify Whether She Can Lawfully Post Photos of Herself to Social Media
By: Aaron P. Rubin
A federal district court dismissed a case against supermodel Gigi Hadid for posting to Instagram a photo of herself that was taken by a paparazzo. The reason for the court’s decision was simple: The party claiming copyright ownership of the photo failed to get... ›Social Links: Suit over “embedded tweet” with Tom Brady’s photo settles; brand agency manipulates Wikipedia; evidence from Instagram wins French rock star’s kids a share of his estate
By: Julie O'Neill
In March, Socially Aware reported on a lawsuit involving several prominent news outlets’ publication of a photo of NFL quarterback Tom Brady on Twitter. The case had the potential to upend a copyright and Internet-law rule that, in the words of a Forbes columnist... ›