hosting liability Archives

The year in review: developments in computer, internet and e-commerce law (2016-2017)

I gave my annual presentation today to the Toronto computer Lawyers’ Group on “The year in review in Computer, Internet and E-Commerce Law”. It covered the period from June 2016 to June 2017. The developments included cases from Canada, the U.S. the U.K., and other EU and Commonwealth countries.

The developments were organized into the broad topics of: Online Liability/Intermediary Remedies, Copyright, Trade-marks/Domain Names, Technology Contracting, e-Commerce & Online Agreements, and Canada’s (despised) anti-spam/malware law, CASL

The cases referred to are listed below.…

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Google liability for defamation on Blogger.com: Tamiz v Google

Last week the UK Court of Appeal in Tamiz v Google Inc [2013] EWCA Civ 68 (14 February 2013) ruled that Google, as the host of the Blogger.com site, had potential liability for defamation by failing to take down or disable access to defamatory content once it receives notice that it is hosting such content.

The Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the UK High Court in Tamiz v Google Inc Google UK Ltd [2012] EWHC 449 (QB) (02 March 2012) which had dismissed a claim against Google for not taking down or removing access to allegedly defamatory statements posted on Blogger.com.…

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Understanding Flava Works v myVidster: does inline linking infringe copyright?

Last week, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals released its opinion in the Flava Works, Inc, v Gunter dba myVidster 2012 WL 3124826 (7^th.Cir. Aug 2, 2012) case. The central issue was whether Flava Works, the owner of copyrights in videos, was entitled to a preliminary injunction against the social video bookmarking service myVidster. The injunction which had been granted by the District Court was vacated.

Some commentators have construed the decision as a ruling that embedding or inline linking to a copyright-infringing video on another web site does not infringe copyright[1].…

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Cyberlockers, social media sites and copyright liability

2011 was the year US copyright law was put to the test confronting whether cyberlockers and social media sites are liable for infringements contributed to by these sites. Some sites, like myVidster (see here also) Megaupload, Hotfile, and MP3tunes suffered set backs or losses in the US courts. Others, like Visible Technologies the operator of the myxer.com social radio website and most recentlyVeoh Networks were more successful, at least so far.

Despite all of this litigation, key issues are still being litigated and perhaps will only be settled in the US Supreme Court.…

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