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February 25, 2009

Round-Up of Reaction to Jones Day/Blockshopper Settlement

Citizen Media Law Project: Thoughts on the Jones Day-Block Shopper Settlement

February 18, 2009

Jones Day / BlockShopper Case Settles

Slate: BlockShopper v Jones Day: The Right of Web Sites to Link

January 27, 2009

Discussion of NY Times / Gatehouse Linking Settlement

Nieman Journalism Lab: Wrap-up NYT / Gatehouse (settlement of dispute re ability of Boston Globe to link to headlines of local papers). Ht Linsay Lavine.

October 27, 2008

Blogger.com Banned In Turkey For Linking To Pirated Sports Transmissions

BasBasBas.com: "Digiturk Causes Turkish Ban of Blogger/Blogspot":

Digiturk asked Blogger to take several blogs or blog entries down containing links to pirated transmissions of the live games. Blogger did nothing, Digiturk went to court and under Turkish intellectual property law, they managed to get Blogger banned completely, effectively banning millions of websites that have nothing to do with Turkish football or pirating.

September 10, 2008

Dozier Internet Law Firm Sues Re Use of Firm Name 'in HyperText Link"

Richmond.com: "Dozier Sues College Dropout for Trademark Infringement":

Dozier alleges, “Riley is particularly fond of attacking law firms with whom he competes for the business of representing entrepreneurs and inventors in intellectual property negotiations.”

In Dozier’s case, the lawsuit contends, the Riley businesses have launched a Web page that contains twelve different instances in which the trademark "Dozier Internet Law" is exclusively used as anchor text in a hypertext link. As Dozier explains it, “An anchor link is supposed to describe the destination a visitor will reach when clicking on the link, and functions much like a road map with a shortcut. These anchor links, however, do not take a visitor to the Dozier Internet Law website. Rather, the links send the party clicking on them to the main website used by the Riley Businesses that offer services which directly compete with Dozier Internet Law.”

Read the whole article. I look forward to reading the complaint.

August 25, 2008

Sheboygan Woman Files 'Landmark' Case Over Web Links

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Sheboygan Women (sic) Files Landmark Case Over Web Links":

Boyden said some companies require other Web sites to get permission to link to them, but he knew of no companies, much less a government body, that have tried to enforce violations of that condition if the links didn’t infringe on a copyright or trademark.

Boyden said not all speech is protected, including links. For instance, someone might use a link to communicate a threat or violate a copyright, and that wouldn’t be protected.

The lawsuit doesn’t show how Reisinger used the link to Sheboygan police or the city’s cease-and-desist order, but Boyden said it appeared from the lawsuit to be protected speech.