Tidying up the Internet: Takedown of Unauthorized Content under Copyright, Trademark, and Defamation Law

• Author: Jon M. Garon
• Position: Director, NKU Chase Law + Informatics Institute and Professor of Law, Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law
• Pages: 513-552

TIDYING UP THE INTERNET:

TAKEDOWN OF UNAUTHORIZED CONTENT UNDER

COPYRIGHT, TRADEMARK, AND DEFAMATION LAW

JON M. GARON*

I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 514

II. COPYRIGHT ................................................................................................. 516

A. Red Flag Test Adds Little ............................................................... 520

B. Counter Notification ....................................................................... 523

C. Current Rulemaking ....................................................................... 527

III. DEFAMATION AND HARMFUL SPEECH ......................................................... 528

A. Online Defamation Generally ........................................................ 528

B. Third-Party Limitations from the Communications Decency

Act of 1996 ............................................................................................ 530

C. Responses to Harmful Speech ......................................................... 533

IV. TRADEMARK ............................................................................................... 537

A. Trademarks and Internet Speech ................................................... 538

B. Early Commercial Battles—Links, Frames, Domains, and

Metatags ................................................................................................ 541

1. Linking .............................................................................. 541

2. Framing ............................................................................. 543

3. Domains ............................................................................ 543

4. Metatags ............................................................................ 545

C. New Battles—Keyword Advertising ................................................. 546

D. Final Words—Eternal Diligence ..................................................... 551

V. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................... 551

Copyright © 2013, Jon M. Garon.

* Director, NKU Chase Law + Informatics Institute and Professor of Law, Northern

Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law; J.D. Columbia University School of

Law 1988. Prepared for use with the ABA Business Law Section, Cyberspace Committee

program March 24, 2012. Special thanks to Susan Stephan, Of Counsel to Kretsch & Gust,

PLLC, for her assistance with the paper and organization of the program.

514 CAPITAL UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [41:513

I. INTRODUCTION

Websites, Internet retailers, and search engines (known as

“information location tools”1) increasingly rely on their users to generate

content, interest, transactions, and value. In the Wild West, which first

characterized the development of the Internet, notions that Usenet sites and

bulletin boards could—or should—be responsible for content posted by

users of the services seemed antithetical to the online ethos.2

In response to early litigation regarding this third-party liability,3

Congress enacted legislation modifying copyright law4 and defamation

law5 to provide Web hosts broad immunity for indirect infringement.

By comparison, the statutory protection enacted for trademarks is

limited to the unauthorized use of trademarks in domain names.6 Statutory

protection has not yet developed for trademarks with respect to consumer

postings or advertising purchased by third parties. Therefore, laws

addressing unauthorized use of trademarks have evolved through the

courts.7

Since the enactment of these various laws (defamation immunity in

1996;8 the copyright notice-and-takedown in 19989 and anticybersquatting

1 17 U.S.C. § 512(d) (2006).

2 See, e.g., Tomasz R. Surmacz, Measurement of Da ta Flow in Usenet News

Management, 5 MEASUREMENT SCI. REV. 47, 47 (2005) (discussing that articles or links

posted to a Usenet Server are automatically distribut ed to the whole network of servers,

which in turn makes monitoring the links difficult).

3 See, e.g., Religious Tech. Ctr. v. Netcom On-Line Commc’n Servs., Inc., 907 F.

Supp. 1361, 1368 (N.D. Cal. 1995).

4 17 U.S.C. § 512(a).

5 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1) (“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall

be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information

content provider.”).

6 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d) (2006).

7 See, e.g., Playboy Enter., Inc. v. Welles, 279 F.3d 796, 803–04 (9th Cir. 2002).

8 47 U.S.C. § 230. See also Ken S. Myers, Wikimmunity: Fitting the Communications

Decency Act to Wikipedia, 20 HARV . J.L. & TECH. 163, 165 (2006).

9 17 U.S.C. § 512. See also THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1998, U.S.

COPYRIGHT OFFICE 12 (Dec. 1998), http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf.

2013] TIDYING UP THE INTERNET 515

in 199910), the Internet has moved from an interesting social phenomenon

to a central component of social interaction and media engagement.

Facebook now boasts 845 million monthly active users, 250 million

photos uploaded daily, and 2.7 billion “likes” and comments each day.11

YouTube boasts 48 hours of video uploaded per minute and 3 billion views

each day.12 Content on these various social media sites has triggered

complaints from companies worldwide. In 2011, Chilling Effects, a

project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recorded 47,628 complaints

from companies in the United States and slightly fewer from companies

located outside the country.13

Twitter has received a number of complaints as well. In response,

“Twitter has taken the unusual step of making [Digital Millennium

Copyright Act] takedown notices public, in partnership with Chilling

Effects . . . and several universities. The site shows 4,410 cease and desist

notices dating back to November 2010.”14 While the percentage of

complaints suggests that the notice-and-takedown system is only a minor

aspect of the Internet media ecology, the existence of the system remains a

source of tremendous anger for many.15

10 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d). See also W. Chad Shear, The Anticybersquatting Consumer

Protection Act—An Offensive Weapon for Trademark Holders, 2001 U. ILL. J.L. TECH. &

POL’Y 219, 219 (2001).

11 Facebook, Inc., Registration Statement (Form S-1) (Feb. 1, 2012), available at

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/

d287954ds1.htm#toc287954_2.

12 Danny Goodwin, New YouTube Statistics: 48 Hours of Video Uploaded Per Minute;

3 Billion Views Per Day, SEARCH ENGINE WATCH (May 25, 2011), http://searchengine

watch.com/article/2073962/New-YouTube-Statistics-48-Hours-of-Video-Uploaded-Per-

Minute-3-Billion-Views-Per-Day.

13 Data from the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, CHILLING EFFECTS, https://www.

chillingeffects.org/stats (last visited Apr. 6, 2013).

14 Jon Brodkin, Twitter Uncloaks a Year’s Worth of DMCA Takedown Notices, 4,410 in

All, ARS TECHNICA (Jan. 27, 2012, 2:50 PM), http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/

01/twitter-uncloaks-a-years-worth-of-dmca-takedown-notices-4410-in-all.ars.

15 See Tim Cushing, The True Damage of an Illegitimate DMCA Takedown Goes Much

Further Than Simple “Inconvenience,” TECHDIRT (Mar. 7, 2012), http://www.techdirt.com/

articles/20120306/15184918004/true-damage-illegitimate-dmca-takedown-goes-much-

further-than-simple-inconvenience.shtml; Problems with Notice and Takedown, U.

PENNSYLVANIA, http://tags.library.upenn.edu/project/35599 (last visited Feb. 22, 2013)

(giving a collection of links to blogs and articles expressing anger regarding the DMCA).