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The Playboy bunny hopped out of the nation's largest appellate court recently with a ruling that could put a wrinkle in one Internet advertising business model. The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ' with the reservations of at least one judge on the unanimous panel ' ruled that search engines are barred from displaying advertising related to trademarked search terms. In other words, you can't point customers in the direction of one company if they're searching for another.
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On Jan. 21, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced the filing of a new round of lawsuits against 532 peer-to-peer (P2P) users in its ongoing campaign to deter illegal online trading of copyrighted music. While this is not the first round of such lawsuits directed at P2P users offering large numbers of unauthorized music files for others to download, this round is novel because the cases were filed against 532 "John Does" ' unidentified persons whom the RIAA can identify at this point only by their IP addresses. The balance of this article will briefly discuss the potential hurdles that the RIAA will face under this new strategy, and what it likely means for the long term success or failure of the industry's effort to deter unauthorized online downloading and recapture lost customers.
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Recent developments in Internet law and in the Internet industry.
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On Dec. 1, 2003, the United States Supreme Court agreed to consider whether a constructive discharge caused by a supervisor's sexual harassment constitutes a tangible employment action that bars an employer from raising the defense that the employee unreasonably failed to employ the employer's procedures for preventing and correcting such conduct. In granting the Pennsylvania State Police's request for review from the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit's decision in <i>Suders v. Easton</i>, 325 F.3d 432 (3d Cir. 2003), the Supreme Court has the opportunity to resolve a growing conflict among the circuit courts regarding the availability of the so-called <i>Ellerth/Faragher</i> affirmative defense in constructive discharge cases.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently held an employer that fired two nonunion workers for complaining to a client about their employer's policies violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
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The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT), which amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), was recently enacted. The FCRA created a national credit reporting system, and was set to expire this month. FACT permanently authorizes the majority of the FCRA's provisions while including two noteworthy revisions. Particularly significant for employers are FACT Sections 611 and 411, which include new standards for third-party investigations of employee wrongdoing and reporting of employee medical information to employers.
Recent rulings of importance to you and your practice.
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For possible future articles, I'd like to gather reader input on a number of topics; here are two. Please be in touch if you or an interested colleague would be a good research contact for either topic. (If you have authoritative knowledge and would like to write on the topic, better yet!)
On Dec. 16, President George W. Bush signed the "can spam" legislation passed earlier in the month by Congress. The legislation provides for jail time and hefty fines for serious violators and calls for the creation of a "do not spam" registry.
