Balough
March 17, 2014
An advertising campaign soliciting former dental patents as potential clients for a law firm is commercial speech, which is not protected under the Texas anti-SLAPP statute. The law firm, Mauze & Bagby, P.L.L.C. (M&B) “ran television, radio, and internet advertisements and developed a website that strongly implied, or even accused, Kool Smiles of performing unnecessary, […]
Balough
March 9, 2014
A federal judge denied a motion to dismiss a defamation case against television court commentator Nancy Grace for her comment about Michael Skakel, whose murder conviction was overturned and who is awaiting retrial, during a segment of Grace’s program. The court found the pleadings show the statement that Skakel’s DNA was found at the murder […]
Balough
March 4, 2014
An actress’s brief appearance in an anti-Islamic film may be copyrightable, entitling the actress to an injunction requiring Google to remove the film from YouTube, the Ninth Circuit found. Cindy Garcia was cast in a minor role in a film called “Desert Warrior,” an Arabian adventure film. She was paid $500 and read from four […]
Balough
February 21, 2014
Michael Jordan has scored again—this time at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals—but it’s no slam dunk. The appellate court found that a full-page spread by Jewel Food Stores, Inc., in a Sports Illustrated commemorative issue purporting to congratulate Jordan on being inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame was commercial speech, reversing […]
Balough
February 19, 2014
Beware of a malware computer program that encrypts all of your computer data and holds it for ransom, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and FBI warn. Called Cryptolocker, the program locks all of a computer’s data. In order to unlock the data, the user must pay a ransom demand sent by email to be paid […]
Balough
January 30, 2014
Need to talk to your kids about internet use? The Federal Trade Commission has issued an updated guide to help with the conversation. “Net Cetera Chatting with Kids About Being Online” provides advice to parents on how to talk with kids about mobile apps, using public Wi-Fi securely, and recognizing text message spam. The guide […]
Balough
January 28, 2014
The posting by a news service of a recording and transcript of a call with financial analysts is a “fair use” and not copyright infringement, the Second Circuit found. Bloomberg L.P., a financial news and data reporting service, posted a recording and transcript of an earnings call minutes after the call conducted by Swatch Group […]
Balough
January 28, 2014
Yelp, Inc. must turn over the identity of anonymous posters who gave bad reviews asserting, apparently falsely, that they were former customers a carpet cleaning service. The Virginia Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s decision requiring the online reviewing service to comply with a subpoena to identify seven posters who gave negative reviews of […]
Balough
January 24, 2014
A blogger has the same First Amendment rights as a traditional journalist and to prove defamation for a post, a plaintiff must show some degree of negligence by the blogger, the Ninth Circuit found. The case involved one of several blog posts by Crystal Cox. That post accused the plaintiffs, who were trustees in a […]
Balough
January 9, 2014
The government’s massive phone metadata gather program is not an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, a New York District Court judge ruled, thus creating a conflict with a Washington, D.C. District Court judge who found the program did violate a person’s right of privacy. In the order, the New York judge disagreed with his Washington, D.C. […]
