Tag Archives: privacy

Whois, We Hardly Knew Ye: GDPR Spells Doom For Domain Name Ownership Transparency

By now, our readers are likely familiar with the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the sweeping, European Union-wide legal and regulatory regime that provides enhanced protections for personal data.  The GDPR, which goes in effect on May 25, 2018, is expected to reshape the digital data landscape in the EU and beyond.  My colleague Catherine Muyl (from our Paris office) provided a helpful GDPR overview back in January,… More

“A Gronking To Remember” Plaintiffs Lose Right Of Publicity Appeal

For those of you in desperate need of Christmas present ideas for a New England Patriots fan, you can rest assured that your ironic backup option – a copy of the romance novel, A Gronking to Remember – is still available for sale. Truth be told, the self-published volume was not in serious danger of becoming unavailable, but the recent Sixth Circuit opinion in Roe v.… More

Privacy or Property? Arizona Court Adopts Post-Mortem Right of Publicity In Intra-Family Online Dispute

The right of publicity, i.e., the right not to have others appropriate your name or image for commercial purposes, is an odd duck.  It was described by Professor Prosser in 1960, and later in the Restatement of Torts, as of one of four species of common law privacy rights intended to remedy the emotional injury to one’s “seclusion” caused by breaches of privacy. By contrast, the Third Restatement of Unfair Competition in 1995,… More

Court Orders Identity of BitTorrent Users to be Revealed in Copyright Case

BitTorrent users now have even more reason to be concerned if they are targeted in “John Doe” lawsuits for copyright infringement. In a recent case, 38 BitTorrent users, known only by their IP addresses and identified as John Does, were sued as a group. Three of the John Does sought to quash the subpoenas issued to their ISPs seeking the names and contact information of the BitTorrent users. A Boston federal court judge denied the motions,… More