JOLT Digest

By Brian Kozlowski

Lori Drew “Cyberbullying” Conviction Thrown Out

The Los Angeles Times reports that on July 2nd, a federal judge dismissed the case against “cyberbully” Lori Drew, saying that the clear terms of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) preclude a guilty verdict. The Lori Drew case received widespread media attention eight months ago when the 50 year-old mother was found guilty of “unauthorized computer access” under the CFFA for aiding her daughter in creating a fake MySpace account that led to another girl’s suicide. The guilty verdict was ardently criticized for criminalizing violations of websites’ terms of service, which few users actually read when creating accounts, essentially allowing websites to make their own law.

China’s Mandatory Client-Side Censoring Program Delayed

Only a day before the previously announced July 1st deadline, the Chinese government announced, through official news agency Xinhua, a delay in the requirement that PC makers pre-install a web-filtering program called “Green Dam Youth Escort.” The Wall Street Journal reports that the project is not abandoned, but merely delayed. Green Dam was first released several months ago as a pornography-filtering program and didn’t evolve into a requirement until the beginning of June, much to the chagrin of PC manufacturers. After the University of Michigan discovered serious security holes, which would open computers to remote code execution, PC manufacturers began to worry about liability issues and possibly acquiring reputations for supporting censorship. So far, only Sony has shipped computers with the software pre-installed in advance of the July 1st deadline.

Supreme Court Allows Remote Storage DVR

Ars Technica and Wired both report that the Supreme Court declined to hear a final appeal in the Cablevision DVR case on the final day of its term. The Second Circuit had allowed Cablevision to continue offering its customers a recording system that is different from traditional recording only in that it stores the customers’ recordings of copyrighted content remotely on Cablevision’s servers. Because the consumer maintains control over the recordings, rather than accessing an on-demand library provided by Cablevision, the court ruled that the recordings were still fair use. Television networks called the case the most important since the 1984 ruling that consumer VHS recording of copyrighted movies falls under fair use. The Supreme Court’s silence aligns with the filing by the Obama administration suggesting that this case was not the appropriate forum to “clarify” the legal issues of fair use.

Another Nesson-RIAA Continue to Clash over File-Sharing

As reported by Ars Technica, Harvard Law professor Charlie Nesson is once more facing off against the RIAA’s MediaSentry in the illegal file-sharing suit against Joel Tenenbaum. Tenenbaum, like Jammie Thomas-Rasset before him, is accused of sharing songs illegally on KaZaa. Nesson and his associates aim to try the same legal tactic that has failed them in the past, namely attempting to discredit the evidence brought by the RIAA as being gathered illegally. The high-profile cases, including controversial high damage awards and internal defense disputes, have been part of a larger attempt to establish solid legal precedent, or prompt a legislative solution, for future file-sharing disputes.

By Tyler Lacey

Federal Prosecutors Launch New Attack Against Online Gamblers in the United States

On June 9, the New York Times reported that federal prosecutors asked four American banks to freeze accounts containing money believed to be used for distributing winnings to online poker players. Wells Fargo, one of the contacted banks, received a court order requiring that the funds be frozen. Professor I. Nelson Rose of Whittier Law School described the move as “surprising” and as a “gamble” by the prosecutors. Professor Rose also said that it is unclear what laws apply to the seizure of individuals’ money.

Canadian Government Decides Not to Regulate Internet Video and Audio Broadcasts

Canadian radio and television broadcasters are required by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to broadcast a minimum amount of Canadian content. On June 9, Ars Technica reported that the CRTC issued a report saying that although internet audio and video do count as “broadcasting” for the purposes of their regulatory schemes, they will retain a regulatory exemption from providing Canadian content. The CRTC’s decision, while currently supported by major providers of online audio and video such as Google, leaves open the possibility that the CRTC will impose future regulations.

Electronic Frontier Foundation Urges Court to Hold Email Protected Under the Fourth Amendment

On June 10, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed an amicus brief in the Sixth Circuit’s ongoing case Warshak v. United States. The brief argues that the Justice Department violated Warshak’s Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy in his email. The EFF reports that “the government acquired over 27,000 emails spanning over six months from Warshak’s email provider, all without probable cause.” The basis of EFF’s position is that email should receive the same protection against unlawful search and seizure as is given to phone calls, postal mail, and private papers kept at home.

Court Abused Discretion by Failing to Apply eBay Factors

On June 9, Patently-O reported that the Federal Circuit remanded a patent dispute case back to the district court because it failed to consider the eBay factors in its refusal to grant a permanent injunction to the patent holder. In the eBay case, the Supreme Court required a patentee seeking injunctive relief to “demonstrate (1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law are inadequate to compensate for that injury; (3) that considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction.”

By Sarah Sorscher

Supreme Court to Consider Business Method Patents

Patently-O reports that the Supreme Court granted certiorari on Bilski v. Doll. The Court will address whether a patentable “process” must be tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or transform a particular article into a different state or thing. The Court will also consider whether this “machine-or-transformation” test, which effectively forecloses meaningful patent protection to many business methods, runs counter to the intent of Congress in enacting 35 U.S.C. § 273 establishing special rules for “method[s] of doing or conducting business. JOLT Digest covers the earlier en banc decision by the Federal Circuit here, and Patently-O offers a detailed summary of the earlier decision here.

Review of NASA Security Regulations Denied

The Metropolitan News-Enterprise reports that on Thursday the Ninth Circuit declined to review en banc a privacy case involving employees at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a part of NASA. A three-judge panel of the appellate court had previously ruled that NASA’s mandatory background checks threatened workers’ constitutional right to privacy. The petition for rehearing generated a plethora of concurring and dissenting opinions, including an opinion by the appellate court concurring in the denial that referred to the background check as a “free-floating, wide-ranging inquiry with no standards, limits, or guarantee of non-disclosure to third parties.” Three opinions dissenting from the rehearing en banc are available here, here, and here. The JPL employees have also created a website voicing their opposition to the background checks.

Court Dismisses Eavesdropping Lawsuits

Wired reported on Wednesday’s decision by a judge for the Northern District of California to dismiss more than three dozen lawsuits aimed at telecommunication companies for assisting in a Bush administration eavesdropping program. The judge ruled that the companies were entitled to immunity based on legislation passed over the summer, which purports to immunize the telecommunications firms from liability. The Electronic Frontier Foundation plans to appeal the decision.

Supreme Court Holds that FDA Regulation Does Not Preempt State Tort Claim
By Caitlyn Ross – Edited by Miriam Weiler

Wyeth v. Levine
Supreme Court of the United States, March 4, 2009, No. 06-1249
Slip Opinion

On March 4th, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the judgment of the Vermont Supreme Court, holding that federal drug labeling regulations do not preempt state failure-to-warn lawsuits.  The Supreme Court held that compliance with FDA labeling requirements did not preempt Levine’s failure-to-warn claim based on what she alleged was defective labeling of Wyeth’s anti-nausea drug Phenergan. In so holding, the Court concluded that Congress did not intend to preempt state-law failure-to-warn actions.  It also rejected Wyeth’s claim that the Court should defer to an FDA statement, made in the preamble to a 2006 regulation, that state tort suits threatened the FDA’s statutory mandate.

Briefs and relevant court documents are available here at the SCOTUS wiki.  The SCOTUS Blog provides an overview of the case. Drug and  Device Law Blog suggests that the decision does not eliminate preemption alcims, but does make them far more difficult to win.  The Wall Street Journal Law Blog features an analysis of the decision.  The Volokh Conspiracy notes a decrease in deference to agencies.

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Supreme Court Rules for Navy in Use of Sonar in Training Exercises
By Jared Frisch – Edited by Dmitriy Tishyevich
Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
Supreme Court of the United States, November 12, 2008, No. 07-1239
Slip Opinion

The Supreme Court reversed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and vacated in part a preliminary injunction that had restricted sonar training operations by the US Navy. The training operations were alleged to damage marine life in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (“NEPA”). The Court applied an equitable balancing test, determining that the likelihood of irreparable injury to the environment was outweighed by the public interest and the Navy’s interest in “effective, realistic training of its sailors.”

Mainstream reporting on the Supreme Court decision can be found at New York Times and the Associated Press.  Further commentary following the case is available at Slashdot and ScotusBlog.

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