Justia Internet Law Opinion Summaries

Augme sued Yahoo! alleging infringement of certain claims of two patents that disclose adding functionality, such as media or advertisements, to a web page. Yahoo! counterclaimed that Augme and World Talk Radio infringed certain claims of its patent. After claim construction, the court granted Yahoo! summary judgment of noninfringement and held that certain means-plus-function terms in claims 19 and 20 of Augme’s patent were indefinite. The parties stipulated to infringement of the asserted claims of Yahoo!’s patent based on the court’s claim construction. The Federal Circuit affirmed that Yahoo!’s accused systems do not infringe the Augme patents either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents and that certain claims are indefinite. The court also upheld the district court’s construction of the claim term “server hostname.”View "Augme Techs, Inc. v. Yahoo! Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant was sentenced to three years probation for threatening to shoot President Obama on defendant's Facebook page. Afterwards, defendant spoke to a reporter for his college newspaper, saying that his ordeal was "pretty funny," that he could not be imprisoned in his "own house," and that a lot of good had come out of his case, including his rock band because a "lot of people showed up [to one of his shows] to see the kid who threatened to kill the [P]resident." The district court, upon learning of these comments, modified the conditions of probation to include 45 days in a halfway house and one year of home confinement with electronic monitoring. Defendant appealed. The court concluded that defendant's appeal was moot to the extent that it challenged the district court's modification of the conditions of probation to include a 45-day term in a halfway house; the appeal was not moot with respect to the district court's modification of the conditions of probation to include an additional eight months in home confinement with electronic monitoring; where 18 U.S.C. 3563(c) permits modification when a defendant's post-sentencing conduct shows that the original conditions were not sufficient to accomplish the purposes of probation, the home confinement modification did not violate defendant's rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause; the home confinement modification did not violate the Due Process Clause where, assuming there was any error, it did not seriously affect the fairness of the proceedings; and the home confinement modification did not violate the First Amendment where defendant's post-sentencing comments were relevant to the conditions of probation because they indicated that defendant did not grasp the seriousness of his conduct and did not think much of the probationary sentence he had received, and defendant was not punished for any abstract beliefs. Accordingly, the court dismissed in part and affirmed in part. View "United States v. Serrapio, Jr." on Justia Law

Daoud, an 18-year-old American citizen, had an email conversation with undercover FBI employees posing as terrorists who responded to messages that he had posted online. Daoud planned “violent jihad” and discussed his interest in committing attacks in the U.S, using bomb-making instructions that he had read in Inspire magazine, an English-language organ of Al Qaeda, and online. Daoud selected a Chicago bar as the target of a bomb that the agent would supply. The agent told him the bomb would destroy the building and would kill “hundreds” of people. Daoud replied: “that’s the point.” On September 14, 2012, Daoud parked a Jeep containing the fake bomb in front of the bar. In an alley, in the presence of the agent, he tried to detonate the fake bomb and was arrested. In jail, he tried to solicit someone to murder the undercover agent with whom he had dealt. The government notified Daoud, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 50 U.S.C. 1801, that it intended to present evidence derived from electronic surveillance conducted under the Act. His attorney sought access to the classified materials submitted in support of the government’s FISA warrant applications. The government supplied a heavily redacted, unclassified response and a classified version, accessible only to the court with a statement that disclosure “would harm the national security.” The harm was detailed in a classified affidavit signed by the FBI’s Acting Assistant Director for Counterterrorism. The district judge ordered the materials sought by defense counsel turned over. In an interlocutory appeal, the Seventh Circuit reversed, stating that in addition to having the requisite security clearance the seeker of such information must establish need to know. View "United States v. Daoud" on Justia Law

The Dirty World website enables users to anonymously upload comments, photographs, and video, which Richie selects and publishes along with his own editorial comments. Jones is a Kentucky high school teacher and a member of the cheerleading squad for the Cincinnati Bengals football team. She was the subject of several submissions posted by anonymous users and of editorial remarks posted by Richie, including photographs of Jones and a statement that she “slept with every other Bengal Football player.” Jones requested that the post be removed. Richie declined. A subsequent post alleged that her former boyfriend “tested positive for Chlamydia Infection and Gonorrhea ... sure Sarah also has both ... he brags about doing sarah in … her class room at the school she teaches at DIXIE Heights." Richie's responded to the post: “Why are all high school teachers freaks in the sack?” Jones brought claims of defamation, libel per se, false light, and intentional inflection of emotional distress. The district court rejected arguments that the claims were barred by the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), 47 U.S.C. 230. A second trial resulted in a verdict for $38,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages. The Sixth Circuit reversed. Under the CDA, Richie and Dirty World were neither creators nor developers of the challenged content. Jones’s tort claims are grounded on the statements of another content provider, but sought to impose liability on Dirty World and Richie as if they were the publishers or speakers of those statements. Section 230(c)(1) bars those claims. View "Jones v. Dirty World Entm't" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Facebook and its founder, alleging that their delay in removing a page entitled "Third Palestinian Intifada," and related pages, which called for Muslims to rise up and kill the Jewish people, constituted intentional assault and negligence. The court affirmed the district court's holding that the Communications Decency Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 230, shielded Facebook and its founder from suit where Facebook qualified as an interactive computer service; the complaint acknowledges that the objected-to information was provided by third party users, not Facebook itself; and the complaint seeks to hold Facebook liable as the "publisher or speaker" of that information. View "Klayman v. Zuckerberg, et al." on Justia Law

Erdely was investigating online distribution of child pornography when he discovered a computer on a peer-to-peer network sharing 77 files that he suspected contained child pornography. With information available to anyone, he found the Internet protocol address (IP address) through which it connected to the internet. Searching publicly available records, Erdely determined that the IP Address was registered to a Comcast subscriber and obtained a court order. Comcast gave Erdely the Neighbor’s name and Pittsburgh address. Erdely executed a warrant. None of the Neighbor’s computers contained child pornography or the file-sharing software; his wireless router was not password-protected. Erdely deduced that the computer sharing child pornography was connecting without the Neighbor’s knowledge. With the Neighbor’s permission, Erdely connected a computer to the router for remote access. Later, while working in Harrisburg, Erdely learned that the computer was again sharing child pornography on the Neighbor’s IP address. Erdely determined the mooching computer’s IP address and MAC address, which belonged to an Apple wireless card. Erdely had not discovered any Apple wireless devices in the Neighbor’s home, so he decided to use a “MoocherHunter” mobile tracking software tool, which can be used by anyone with a directional antenna. Not knowing which residence the signal was coming from, Erdely proceeded without a warrant. From the sidewalk the MoocherHunter’s readings were strongest when aimed at Stanley’s apartment. Erdely obtained a warrant for Stanley’s home. When officers arrived, Stanley fled, but returned and confessed that he had connected to the Neighbor’s router to download child pornography. Erdely seized Stanley’s Apple laptop and recovered 144 images and video files depicting child pornography. Stanley was charged with possession of child pornography, 18 U.S.C. 2252(a). The district court denied a motion to suppress. The Third Circuit affirmed. Use of the MoocherHunter was not a search under the Fourth Amendment. View "United States v. Stanley" on Justia Law

AF Holdings, represented by Prenda Law, filed suit in district court against 1,058 unnamed John Does who it alleged had illegally downloaded and shared the pornographic film "Popular Demand" using a file-sharing service known as BitTorrent. Prenda Law's general approach was to identify certain unknown persons whose IP addresses were used to download pornographic films, sue them in gigantic multi-defendant suits that minimized filing fees, discover the identities of the persons to whom these IP addresses were assigned by serving subpoenas on the Internet service providers to which the addresses pertained, and then negotiate settlements with the underlying subscriber. The providers refused to comply with the district court's issuance of subpoenas compelling them to turn over information about the underlying subscribers, arguing that the subpoenas are unduly burdensome because venue is improper, personal jurisdiction over these Doe defendants is lacking, and defendants could not properly be joined together in one action. The court agreed, concluding that AF Holdings clearly abused the discovery process by not seeking information because of its relevance to the issues that might actually be litigated here. AF Holdings could not possibly have had a good faith belief that it could successfully sue the overwhelming majority of the John Doe defendants in this district. Although AF Holdings might possibly seek discovery regarding individual defendants in the judicial districts in which they are likely located, what it certainly may not do is improperly use court processes by attempting to gain information about hundreds of IP addresses located all over the country in a single action, especially when many of those addresses fall outside of the court's jurisdiction. Given AF Holdings' decision to name and seek discovery regarding a vast number of defendants who downloaded the film weeks and even months apart - defendants who could not possibly be joined in this litigation - one can easily infer that its purpose was to attain information that was not, and could not be, relevant to this particular suit. Accordingly, the court vacated the order and remanded for further proceedings, including a determination of sanctions, if any, for AF Holdings' use of a possible forgery in support of its claim. View "AF Holdings, LLC v. Does 1-1058" on Justia Law

Suffolk owns a patent directed to methods and systems for controlling a server that supplies files to computers rendering web pages. The patent discloses using the address of the referring web page to determine whether to serve a file, and if so, which file. The district court entered summary judgment of invalidity, holding that claims 1, 7, and 9 were anticipated by a Usenet newsgroup post. Suffolk then stipulated that, in light of the district court’s prior art, claim construction, and expert testimony rulings, claim 6 was also anticipated. The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "Suffolk Techs., LLC v. AOL Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Zynga and Facebook under the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. 2511(3)(a), and the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2702(a)(2), two chapters within the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA). Plaintiffs alleged violations of the ECPA based on Facebook and Zynga's disclosure of the information contained in referer headers to third parties. On appeal, plaintiffs argued that the district court erred in holding that Facebook, Zynga, and the third parties were the intended recipients of the referer headers containing the user's Facebook IDs and the URLs. The court held that under the ECPA, the term "contents" refers to the intended message conveyed by the communication, and does not include record information regarding the characteristics of the message that is generated in the course of the communication. The referer header information that Facebook and Zynga transmitted to third parties included the user's Facebook ID and the address of the webpage from which the user's HTTP request to view another webpage was sent. This information does not meet the definition of "contents," because these pieces of information are not the "substance, purport, or meaning" of a communication. Therefore, the court concluded that plaintiffs have failed to state a claim because they did not allege that either Facebook or Zynga disclosed the "contents" of a communication, a necessary element of their ECPA claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal with prejudice. View "In re: Zynga Privacy Litigation" on Justia Law

Lavabit, a company that provided encrypted email service, and Ladar Levison, the company's sole and managing member, appealed the district court's order of contempt and imposition of monetary sanctions because Lavabit and Levison failed to comply with the Government's court orders under both the Pen/Trap Statute, 18 U.S.C. 3123-27, and the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2701-12, requiring Lavabit to turn over particular information related to a target in a criminal investigation. The court concluded that the district court did not err in finding Lavabit and Levison in contempt once they admittedly violated the order. In view of Lavabit's waiver of its appellate arguments by failing to raise them in the district court, and its failure to raise the issue of fundamental or plain error review, there was no cognizable basis upon which to challenge the order. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Lavabit, LLC, et al." on Justia Law