In April 2009, the anti-gay-marriage group National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") sent a number of DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, demanding that it take down clips of leaked audition outtakes from NOM's "Gathering Storm" advocacy ad, which had been uncovered by the Human Rights Campaign and circulated widely online.  It looks like NOM also sent DMCA takedown notices based on user parodies of the outtakes and/or the ad (e.g.), although many videos of this type are still available on the site.  According to Wired's Threat Level blog, some YouTube users responded by "saving the videos with keepvid.com, and then uploading them back to YouTube when they’re pulled."

On May 4, 2009, counsel for Miss Universe L.P., LLP ("MUO") sent a cease-and-desist letter to the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") complaining about an advocacy ad entitled "No Offense," which incorporates excerpts from the televised broadcast of the 2009 Miss Universe pagent.  The letter claimed that the ad violated MUO's copyright and objected to NOM broadcasting the ad on television and posting it on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.

According to NOM, the ad "highlights the efforts of same-sex marriage activists to silence and discredit pro-marriage advocates, calling them 'liars,' 'bigots,' and worse." It focuses on the controversy surrounding Miss California Carrie Prejean's answer to a question about gay marriage during the 2009 pageant. The footage that MUO objects to depicts Miss Prejean responding to a question from celebrity blogger and pageant judge Mario Lavandeira, saying "I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there . . . ."

On May 5, counsel for NOM responded, rejecting MUO's demand that it cease and desist from broadcasting and posting the ad and arguing that its incorporation of the 2009 pageant footage for purposes of politcal commentary is a fair use.

Self-published author Jeffrey Hammer sued Amazon.com in New York state court (later removed to federal court by Amazon) alleging libel, defamation, antitrust violations, breach of contract, and copyright violations, among others things.  The dispute revolved around negative reviews of Hammer's books posted on Amazon.com by reviewer Anthony Trendl and Amazon's failure to remove Trendl as a reviewer.  Before filing suit against Amazon, Hammer sued Trendl directly, but a federal court dismissed the lawsuit.  (For details, see our database entry, Hammer v. Trendl.) 

Hammer's complaint claimed that Amazon was liable for publishing Trendl's allegedly defamatory statements, that Amazon violated his copyright by displaying a graphic depicting Plaintiff's book cover, and that Amazon breached its contract with him and otherwise violated his rights by removing his books from the site and refusing to do further business with him. 

Amazon moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Hammer's allegations failed to state a claim and that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("Section 230") protected it from liability for publishing Trendl's statements. Amazon also moved the court for a permanent injunction to prevent Hammer from filing future lawsuits against it.

The court granted Amazon's motion to dismiss and partially granted its motion for a permanent injunction against Hammer.  The court ruled that Trendl's comments were statements of opinion that could not support a defamation claim.  The court dismissed the copyright claim, finding that Amazon's use of the book graphic either involved no copying, or alternatively, was authorized by Hammer.  The court found that Amazon was within its contract rights terminating its relationship with Hammer.  The court did not reach Amazon's Section 230 argument.

The court granted an injunction against Hammer preventing him from commencing any action against Amazon in federal court relating to reviews of his books or Amazon's refusal to do business with him.  

On January 14, 2008, the Associated Press (AP) sued All Headline News (AHN), W. Jeffrey Brown, the owner of AHN, and Danielle George, a senior editor for AHN.  The AP claims that AHN is illegally copying and rewriting stories by AP reporters and distributing the stories to clients and displaying the stories on the AHN website.  The AP is seeking to restrain AHN from further distribution of AP material and to recover unspecified damages.

The AP is a not-for-profit membership corporation that describes itself as the oldest and largest news agency in the world, employing about 3,000 reporters, and distributing news content to thousands of radio and television stations, newspapers, and internet news portals.  AHN is a Florida-based company that describes itself as "a leading provider of news, weather, and other content for web sites, wireless, digital signage, interactive applications, broadcast and print use."  The AP's complaint alleges that AHN does not employ its own reporters, and instead instructs its writers to copy or rewrite breaking news stories found on the Internet. 

The AP's complaint specifically identifies six articles written by AP reporters, claiming that AHN "copied some or all of the expression contained within" the articles, and then transmitted the articles to AHN customers and displayed the articles on the AHN website.  The AP claims that these and similar practices have infringed their copyright "hundreds if not thousands of times."  The AP claims these practices also violated their quasi-property right in breaking news under the New York common law tort of hot news misappropriation.  The AP also alleges that AHN intentionally removed the AP's name from some news reports, constituting impermissible altering or removing of copyright management information under the DMCA.  AP's amended complaint also includes claims for trademark infringement, unfair competition in violation of the Lanham Act, unfair competition in violation of New York Common law, and breaches of contract. 

On February 17, 2009, Judge P. Kevin Castel, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, granted AHN's motion to dismiss the trademark claim, finding that it lacked factual support.  Judge Castel also dismissed the claim of unfair competition under the Lanham Act, finding that AHN can legally claim that it maintains a "news division" even if they do no original reporting.  Judge Castel declined to dismiss the other claims, most notably finding that hot news misappropriation was a recognized cause of action under New York law. 

Update:

3/19/09 - The parties agreed to pursue private mediation.

6/15/09 - The court dismissed claims after the parties reached a settlement. According to a subsequent press release, AHN paid an unspecified sum to settle the case and "agreed that [it] would not make competitive use of content or expression from AP stories."  AHN also acknowledged that "there were many instances in which AHN improperly used AP's content without AP's consent" and that "the tort of 'hot news misappropriation' has been upheld by other courts and was ruled applicable in this case by U.S. District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel."

On February 25, 2009, Michael Wolff, founder of Newser, blogged that Newser had recently received a letter from the New York Times requesting that it stop using the Times' "T" logo.  Newser is a news aggregator and curator that links to and summarizes articles from news sources around the web.  The articles are presented as a grid of photographs, each overlayed with the title of the article, the amount of time since it was uploaded, and the source of the article, usually accompanied by a small logo of that source. 

Wolff has not made the letter public, but he told the Neiman Journalism Lab that it came from the New York Times Company's General Counsel's office.  Wolff told Peter Kafka, of MediaMemo, that the letter was "legal boilerplate," warning that the Times would "pursue all available remedies, both criminal and civil" if they continued to use the logo.

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times, told the Neiman Journalism Lab that they asked Newser to stop using the "gothic 'T' logo," which is trademarked, and asked Newser to take down a photo that was used without permission and misattributed, presumably on the basis of copyright. She also told the Neiman Journalism Lab that Newser took down the photo. The Times' logo still appears on Newser for summaries from the New York Times.