The late Tupac Shakur might no longer have any say over how his image is used, but that doesn’t mean you can use a photograph of the famed rapper without getting permission from the photographer. [More]
lawsuits
Student Lender, Debt Collector To Refund More Than $3.5M To Borrowers
By 9.18.17 — Updated: 9.19.17
Two months after private student loan lender National Collegiate Student Loan Trust came under scrutiny amid reports that the company, along with its debt collector TransWorld, filed illegal student loan debt collection lawsuits against defaulted borrowers without citing proper or correct paperwork, federal regulators have ordered the companies to pay $21.6 million in refunds and penalties, and revise their collection practices. [More]
Why You Should Care About South Dakota’s Controversial Online Sales Tax Law
By 9.14.17
There aren’t even a million people living in South Dakota, but the state’s efforts to collect sales tax from online retailers could eventually have an impact on the hundreds of millions of Americans in other states who shop online. [More]
The ‘Monkey Selfie’ Lawsuit May Finally Be Over
By 9.11.17
Bad news for any artistic monkeys, apes, elephants, or dolphins who had dreams of selling their creations at a gallery someday: A federal lawsuit over a famous 2011 photo taken by a macaque has come to an end without any real decision on whether or not non-humans can hold a copyright. [More]
Equifax Already Being Sued Over Massive Breach; Company Criticized For Amateurish Response To Theft
By 9.8.17
Within hours of Equifax — one of the nation’s three major credit bureaus — confirming that the records of some 143 million people had been compromised in a data breach, the company now faces a lawsuit accusing it of failing to protect its stockpile of sensitive consumer information. Meanwhile, some critics are saying that Equifax’s response to the breach may be causing more harm than good. [More]
Popular YouTube-To-MP3 Site Will Shut Down Following Recording Industry Lawsuit
By 9.5.17
Even though YouTube is primarily thought of as a video platform, many people use the site as a way to host and listen to just about any song they would want to hear for free. Some online services let users easily convert those streaming audio clips into MP3 files, but one of the more popular destinations for this conversion will be shutting down as part of a legal settlement with several record companies. [More]
Verizon Unable To Shake Off Lawsuits Over Yahoo Data Breach
By 8.31.17
There’s some bad legal news for Verizon, new owner of the internet services and content portions of Yahoo. A federal judge in San Jose denied Verizon’s motion to dismiss lawsuits from Yahoo users whose accounts were part of a series of breaches that affected an unprecedented number of users. [More]
Amazon Sued Over Allegedly Defective Eclipse Glasses
By 8.31.17
Before the nationwide solar eclipse earlier this month, experts, including some at NASA, warned that solar eclipse glasses on the market may not meet normal standards for eye protection that one should normally wear when staring at the sun. The decentralized nature of Amazon’s marketplace meant that the site was a popular source for potentially insufficient eclipse glasses, and now people who bought them have filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon. [More]
Have You Used TDBank’s Penny Arcade Machines? The Bank Might Owe You Money
By 8.28.17
Until recently, TDBank branches had the best-named change-counting machines in the industry, the Penny Arcade. Now the bank is closer to settling a class action that customers filed over their allegedly miscounted change. [More]
Is A Facebook ‘Friend’ The Same As A Real Friend, Legally Speaking?
By 8.25.17
Thanks to Facebook, the term “friend” has been stretched far beyond its traditional definition. Many Facebook users have “friends” they have never met in person, haven’t seen in years or decades, know very little about, and who you may actually find objectionable in spite of the “friend” designation. That’s why, according to one Florida appeals court, being someone’s Facebook friend is no indication of any genuine familiar or intimate connection to that person. [More]
Appeals Court Deals Blow To Streaming Service That Lets You Filter Out Nudity & Swearing
By 8.24.17
VidAngel is a streaming service that allows subscribers to filter out nudity, violence, swearing, or anything else they might find offensive in a movie or TV show. Today, a federal appeals court dealt the latest blow to VidAngel, saying that the service likely violates federal copyright law, and keeping in place an injunction that prevents the service from reproducing and streaming videos without permission. [More]
Judge Throws Out Dozens Of Lawsuits Over Cellulose In ‘100% Grated Parmesan Cheese’
By 8.24.17
The recent revelation that your grated parmesan cheese might contain some cellulose powder led to dozens of lawsuits against Kraft Heinz, Walmart, Target, Albertsons, Publix, and others, alleging that these companies misled shoppers with labels that declared “100% grated parmesan” or something similar. But today the federal judge overseeing all these disputes dismissed the lawsuits, saying that people should read the labels on the food they buy. [More]
Justice Dept. Decides It No Longer Wants Info On 1.3 Million Visitors To Anti-Trump Site
By 8.23.17
The U.S. Department of Justice recently tried to compel a website hosting company to turn over all the information the company has on the approximately 1.3 million internet users who visited a site created to organize a protest during President Trump’s inauguration. Now the DOJ is rethinking that plan, withdrawing its demand for this mountain of data. [More]
Sony Agrees To Refund Xperia Owners For Claiming Devices Were Waterproof
By 8.23.17
A few years ago, Sony walked back its marketing claims that the Xperia line of devices were so waterproof, they could be used to take photos underwater. The company is now agreeing to settle a class action complaint that resulted from those waterproof claims by issuing refunds to anyone whose phone or tablet was damaged by water. [More]
Atari Claims Nestlé Ripped Off Classic Video Game For Kit Kat Commercial
By 8.18.17
A 2016 ad for Nestlé’s Kit Kat bars includes a video game that looks an awful lot like Breakout, the classic Atari video game co-created by Apple’s Steve Wozniak. Problem is, Atari says Nestlé didn’t get permission to make this Kit Kat-themed Breakout clone. [More]
Court Throws Out AT&T’s Effort To Block Google Fiber In Louisville
By 8.17.17
Competition in broadband and cable is scarce at best. That’s in part because when a new player does try to build service somewhere, incumbents like AT&T will pull every legal maneuver they can to try and block it. But one court has now ruled on a contentious case in Louisville, KY, throwing out AT&T’s lawsuit and paving the way for competition to come to town. [More]
Poland Spring Bottled Water Accused Of Being A “Colossal Fraud”
By 8.16.17
Would you be willing to shell out a few more bucks for a product marketed as “spring” water than you would for plain old groundwater? A group of consumers say in a class-action lawsuit they wouldn’t have paid a premium for Nestlé’s Poland Spring water had they been aware it allegedly doesn’t come from natural springs in Maine. [More]
Why You Should Care About This Lawsuit Against A Data Company You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
By 8.15.17
The legal system has long taken a “no harm, no foul” approach to certain legal disputes: If you haven’t actually been injured by the other party’s actions, you’ll have a hard time convincing the court that your lawsuit shouldn’t be thrown out. But the internet, where incorrect information can be disseminated globally within seconds (and may never truly be erased), is causing courts to reconsider the question: When can you sue a company for an intangible harm? [More]
