These days, some of tech’s most important decisions are being made inside courtrooms. Google and Facebook are fending off antitrust accusations, while patent suits determine how much control of their own products they can have. The slow fight over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act threatens platforms like Twitter and YouTube with untold liability suits for the content they host. Gig economy companies like Uber and Airbnb are fighting for their very existence as their workers push for the protections of full-time employees. In each case, judges and juries are setting the rules about exactly how far tech companies can push the envelope and exactly how much protection everyday people have. This is where we keep track of those legal fights and the broader principles behind them. When you move fast and break things, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise when you end up in court.
We’re listening to testimony from one of the responding officers who arrested Luigi Mangione in a Pennsylvania McDonalds. The officer testified that Mangione’s medical face mask made him stand out as the person who was reported as being suspicious.
“We don’t wear masks” in the city, officer Joseph Detwiler told the court. “We have antibodies.” This elicited an audible reaction from the audience.
We’re back in New York court this morning for pre-trial hearings on whether key evidence in the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting case will be barred from being shown to jurors — that includes items like a firearm and notebook recovered when Mangione was arrested. As I left the courthouse last night, some Mangione supporters were already “in line” to try to get inside on Tuesday. They camped out across the street in tents overnight.
A Department of Corrections officer at the Pennsylvania prison where Mangione was held after his arrest told the court that he and Mangione discussed how traditional media and social media was reacting to the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The corrections officer told Mangione that from his perspective, mainstream media focused on the crime, whereas social media users discussed the wrongdoings of the healthcare industry.
Hearings this week will focus on whether key evidence is admissible in the New York State case against Mangione, who’s accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. At each hearing, trucks have circled the courthouse with information about the case and stories of patients who have struggled to get healthcare claims approved.
Fresh off a settlement with the DOJ over its software allegedly enabling landlord collusion to raise rents, RealPage is now suing the state of New York over a new law that bans algorithmic rent pricing, claiming it violates the company’s First Amendment rights.
RealPage is seeking a judgment and injunction against a recently adopted statute that seeks to prohibit the use of math and publicly available information to provide advice or recommendations to RealPage’s customers who own and manage rental housing properties. Among other things, the statute seeks to ban software that uses public data about rental or lease terms to advise or recommend market-appropriate rent prices for rental housing properties.
Cameo, the service that gives purpose to has-beens, has secured a temporary restraining order that prohibits Altman and Co from using “Cameo” to name a Sora feature that lets people insert themselves and characters into AI-generated videos. The TRO expires shortly after a trademark hearing scheduled for December 19th.
It’s the latest legal ruling that training on copyrighted materials without permission violates said copyright, ignoring OpenAI’s argument that users should be the ones held liable.
German music rights society GEMA filed the case on behalf of the lyricists behind nine of the country’s biggest hits, though OpenAI says it’s considering an appeal.
NFL analyst Mina Kimes, one of several ESPN personalities who promoted Papaya Gaming’s Solitaire Cash app on social media, says she’s “deeply embarrassed” for the endorsement. Papaya is currently tied up in a federal lawsuit over whether it used bots to control what were advertised as skill-based games.
Following similar lawsuits in Louisiana and Kentucky, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on X that he’s suing the gaming company for “putting pixel pedophiles and profits” over child safety.
“We cannot allow platforms like Roblox to continue operating as digital playgrounds for predators where the well-being of our kids is sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed.”
The man accused of throwing a sandwich at a Border Patrol agent was found not guilty Thursday. The officer who was hit with the sandwich gave a testimony loaded with details, including that the sub “exploded all over” him and that he could smell mustard and onions. The jury apparently didn’t have a taste for it — perhaps it was a subpar case.
As the Oregon National Guard lawsuit proceeds, it’s become clear that right-wing content creators have a direct line to the federal government and are shaping national policy itself.
Patent and Trademark Office director John A. Squires has ordered the 12,403,397 patent — often oversimplified to “summoning characters and making them fight” — to be reexamined, citing two older Konami and Nintendo applications that raise “a substantial new question of patentability.” This isn’t one of the patents in Nintendo’s ongoing legal battle with Palworld-creator Pocketpair.
Sean Fitzpatrick promises his AI won’t get you in trouble with a judge.
Sam O’Hara protested the deployment of the National Guard into DC by following soldiers around playing the Star Wars Imperial March on a bluetooth speaker, posting the videos he recorded of himself to TikTok. One guardsman was not amused and called the cops on O’Hara, who was handcuffed and (briefly) detained; the ACLU of DC is now suing.
The lawsuit opens with this sentence:
In the Star Wars franchise, The Imperial March is the music that plays when Darth Vader or other dark forces enter a scene or succeed in their dastardly plans.
You can read the rest below.
[ACLU-DC]
Apparently, there’s more going on than just Jontay Porter. ESPN, ABC News, and NBC News report that Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups have been arrested by the FBI in separate cases, with a press conference planned for 10AM ET.
[Rozier and Jones are] among six people charged Thursday with turning professional basketball into a criminal gambling operation by using inside information to place unlawful wagers, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Since a dupe is an unaffiliated similar product (or even unauthorized copy), this registration — first reported by The Fashion Law — is a real doozy. Is this a legal innovation in shutting down dupes of Lululemon’s products, or is it a recursive marketing stunt?
It’s a great time to reread Mia Sato on the wild world of dupes and the increasingly tangled intellectual property regime around them.
No reason was given for Strava’s voluntary dismissal, three weeks after it attempted to block sales of Garmin devices due to alleged patent infringement.
[DC Rainmaker]
Or would you? Smucker’s is accusing Trader Joe’s of ripping off its Uncrustables and creating “copycats” that infringe on the shape of the sandwiches and packaging. Trader Joe’s whole thing is that they make in-house versions of popular products — not just food but also things like skincare. But as I’ve written, the legal status of dupes is more complicated than it might seem.
Judge Jeannette A. Vargas dismissed Drake’s defamation claim against Kendrick Lamar for “Not Like Us,” a song that “contains lyrics explicitly accusing Drake of being a pedophile, set to a catchy beat and propulsive bassline,” she writes in her opinion. Not only does no one think of rap beefs as being strictly truth-telling, Drake explicitly asked Lamar to do it in “Taylor Made Freestyle,” Vargas notes. I recommend reading the whole thing — Vargas clearly had a good time writing it, especially that footnote about Millie Bobby Brown.
To support their suits against OPM and DOGE, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is selling a retro-looking ringer t-shirt, and honestly it’s kind of a banger. I think I am going to buy one, hem it into a crop top and wear it when I go rock climbing. At $25 it’s a steal.
California is banning streaming ads that are louder than the content around them, bringing streamers in line with broadcast TV. But as some ask whether Big Government has gone too far this time, we say: No, obviously not!
Hoto:
You can just do that? You can just ban things because they’re loud, purposeless and annoying??
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How much should the law defer to an internet hallucination?
