Internet Law

An enlarged print of an Instagram post containing a copyrighted photo counts as a transformative use, an attorney for "appropriation artist" Richard Prince — whose use of other artists' material in his own works has made him no stranger to the courts — argued before a New York federal judge in April.

The consumer agency has taken the view that advertisement — without proper disclosures — can mislead consumers. The agency has previously put the burden of ensuring proper disclosure on the brands. On April 19, the FTC turned its attention downstream to the "influencers" themselves.

With the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to take effect in May of 2018, the serious implications for corporate legal counsel and e-discovery teams are difficult to deny.

In this heady atmosphere, law firms risk succumbing to the temptation — indeed, the seeming necessity — to exploit to the hilt the Internet's huge upside — its massive growth and profit potential — while neglecting its huge downside: its immense threats to data security.

In a newsworthy case in which retail giant Amazon and social media developer Foursquare Labs, among others, submitted friend of the court briefs, the New York Court of Appeals affirmed decisions which denied Facebook's motion to quash warrants issued to it by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and denied Facebook's motion to compel disclosure of the district attorney's supporting affidavit to its warrant application.

A Southern California assemblyman on Monday shelved legislation that would have blocked cities from taxing streaming video services such as Netflix and Hulu.

It happened. Some current or former client had the gall to write something less than flattering about you online. What do you do? The first thing to do, and this can be the hardest thing for attorneys, is to turn off your attorney. Feedback can be hard to take.

The FCC's move to stop Internet service providers from collecting customers' personal information without consent has itself been halted. The Senate voted 50-48 on March 24 to overturn the rules, with the House expected to follow suit.