May 2021

During May of 2021, the California Senate passed a law further prohibiting the use of broad confidentiality and nondisparagement provisions in agreements between a company and its employees. The new law expands on a 2018 law inspired by the #metoo movement, which banned settlement agreements preventing an employee from disclosing facts underlying claims for sexual harassment, or information about unlawful sexual harassment in the workplace. Now, Senate Bill 331, also known as the “Silenced No More Act,” aims to severely limit confidentiality and nondisparagement agreements arising out of any claim for harassment (not just sexual harassment) or discrimination in the workplace.

Whether you are a crypto guru or not, you have likely heard about NFTs. The three-letter acronym, NFT, stands for “Non-Fungible Token”. NFTs are the centre of attention right now because of high-profile sales, such as $70 million for digital artwork, $2.5 million for Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, and more than $230 million spent buying and trading digital collectibles of NBA highlights. Copyright issues are emerging as some artwork and tweets are being tokenized into NFTs without the copyright owner’s consent. To explore copyright in the digital space of NFTs, a basic understanding of NFTs is first required.

On May 4, 2021, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment for Snap, Inc., owner of the mobile application Snapchat, in a case brought by the parents of two teenage boys tragically killed in a car accident. The parents claimed that Snap, Inc. caused the death of their sons through its negligent design of Snapchat. They claimed that that their sons were encouraged to drive at dangerously high speeds by a Snapchat filter which purports to show the user’s real-time speed (the “Speed Filter”). The boys in this case drove at speeds reaching 123 miles per hour and eventually fatally crashed into a tree going approximately 113 miles per hour. Shortly before the accident one of the boys opened Snapchat to use the Speed Filter, believing that posting a video of them traveling over 100 m.p.h could result in rewards within the app. See Lemmon v Snap, Inc. (9th Cir. May 4, 2021).  Snap claimed immunity under federal law.