Sanctions

The Sound of Fury in Recent Righthaven Cases

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Two legal developments in Nevada and Colorado last week make Righthaven (previous post here) a textbook example of how not to win a lawsuit.  In their cases against the Democratic Underground (of which details can be found in the CMLP legal threats database) and Brian Hill (whose case filings are available on Scribd), Righthaven appears to be suing without owning the copyright and picking a fight with the judge handling dozens of still-pending cases, respectively.

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Seventh Circuit Vacates Contempt for E-Mail Barrage

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The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated the summary contempt citation and sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman after his court e-mail account was inundated with messages after infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau urged his supporters to e-mail the judge. FTC v. Trudeau, No. 10-1383, slip op. (7th Cir. May 20, 2010).

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Each Man an Island? Record Industry Denies that Three Strikes Ban Will Be Collective Punishment

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No man is an island, no man stands alone
Each man's joy is joy to me
Each man's grief is my own
We need one another, so I will defend
Each man as my brother
Each man as my friend

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Beverly Stayart Supports Seals, Not Cialis: Section 230, Search Engines, and Vanity Queries

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Search engines have become the new deep pockets in this age of cyber-litigation.  Despite the fact that they do not control the content of the sites they index in any way, people still routinely seek to hold them liable for unsavory or objectionable things that appear in search results.  One might have thought that passage of Section 230 of the Communications Decency A

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Virginia Blogger Targeted With Outrageous Subpoena

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In perhaps the most blatant misuse of the subpoena power we've seen since the subpoena served on Kathleen Seidel of Neurodiversity last March, a lawyer for Thomas Garrett of Virginia has served a patently overbroad subpoena on blogger Waldo Jaquith, who publishes cvillenews.com, a community news blog about Charlottesville, Virginia. 

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Judge Sanctions Lawyer for Issuing Subpoena to Blogger Kathleen Seidel

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A federal magistrate judge in New Hampshire has sanctioned Clifford Shoemaker, a Virginia attorney, for abusing the legal process by issuing a subpoena to Kathleen Seidel. Seidel publishes the blog Neurodiversity, where she writes about autism issues.

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