After being in force for merely ten weeks, the German law requiring social media companies to quickly remove hate speech from their sites (Network Enforcement Act – NetzDG) may soon be revised following criticism that too much online content is being blocked.
Grumpy Cat Almost Smiling Over Big Award
Grumpy Cat has a new reason to turn that frown upside-down. Though the cat is known for her sneer, she is (or rather, Grumpy Cat Limited and its/her owners are) sitting pretty on a recent jury award in California of over $700,000 for trademark and copyright infringement and breach of contract. (Grumpy Cat Ltd. v. Grenade Beverage LLC, Civ. No. 8:15-cv-02063 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 24, 2018) (jury verdict)).
The long arm of the law
Businesses today operate in a global, borderless environment, in which social media platforms allow them to market and distribute their goods and services around the world with ease. As a result, it has become more difficult to protect and enforce a company’s intellectual property rights online. For example, an alleged infringer could circumvent a country-specific restriction to access certain material by simply changing his or her ‘virtual’ location. This is posing an interesting question for the courts, and has led to a recent Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision in which the SCC ordered a worldwide injunction against a third party in order to ensure that an alleged infringer could not circumvent a national restriction. (Google Inc. v. Equustek Solutions Inc., 2017 SCC 34 (the Worldwide Injunction Decision)).