Socially Aware

May 04, 2020 - Terms of Use, Copyright, Litigation
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
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April 06, 2020 - Section 230 Safe Harbor, Litigation
Computer Service Providers Face Implied Limits on CDA Immunity
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
Often lauded as the most important law for online speech, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) does not just protect popular websites like Facebook, YouTube and Google from defamation and other claims based on third-party content. It is also critically important to
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February 24, 2020 - Discovery, Litigation
Are Facebook Posts Discoverable? Application of the Forman Test in N.Y.
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
New York courts are increasingly ordering the production of social media posts in discovery, including personal messages and pictures, if they shed light on pending litigation. Nonetheless, courts remain cognizant of privacy concerns, requiring parties seeking social media discovery to avoid broad requests akin
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February 10, 2020 - Contracts, Web Scraping, Privacy, Copyright, Litigation
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
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February 05, 2020 - Web Scraping, Litigation
Combatting Unauthorized Webscraping
Socially Awar e contributors Alex Lawrence and Kristina Ehle authored an article for the Computer Law Review International that discusses the impact of the hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which holds that automated scraping
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December 10, 2019 - E-Discovery, Discovery, Litigation
Foreign Companies Can Use 28 U.S.C. § 1782 to Unmask Anonymous Internet Posters
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
A random Twitter account tags a Japanese company and badmouths it in a series of tweets. Because the tweets are tagged, a search of the company’s name on Twitter will display the tweets with the negative comments among the search results. Upset over the
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November 12, 2019 - Defamation, Section 230 Safe Harbor, Litigation
The Joys and Dangers of Tweeting: A CDA Immunity Update
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
A recent decision from a federal court in New York highlights the limits social media users enjoy under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The case involves Joy Reid, the popular host of MSNBC’s AM Joy who has more than two million
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November 06, 2019 - DMCA, Copyright, IP, Litigation
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.
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November 04, 2019 - Terms of Use, Online Contracts, Litigation
Just Browsing: District Court Finds Browsewrap Agreement Enforceable
By: Anthony M. Ramirez
Courts continue to grapple with the enforceability of online agreements. While courts generally enforce clickwrap agreements—online agreements where users affirmatively show their acceptance after being presented with the terms, usually by clicking “I agree”—browsewrap agreements have stood on shakier enforceability grounds. Browsewrap agreements are
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October 09, 2019 - Advertising, Copyright, Litigation
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
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