T.C. Johnston, LL.M., Internet Law

03/13/2024

Used to be in biz comms you'd "follow-up" or "get back", but then it was "I'll circle back" which is stupid. Good news is "circle back" is apparently dead. Bad news is it's apparently been replaced by "I'll revert" -- which is grammatically nonsensical, and way stupider. Why do folks fall into using homogenized stupid corp-speak? Not me, baby.

10/06/2021

Dr. Seuss Enterprises LP and the makers of the Dr. Seuss/"Star Trek" mashup book "Oh, the Places You'll Boldly Go!" have settled Seuss' copyright infringement claims, according to a Tuesday filing in San Diego federal court.

01/11/2021

Section 230 "I do not think it means what you think it means..."

[Published in the San Jose Mercury-News, January 10, 2021] Section 230, which says that websites aren’t liable for third-party content, has developed an increasingly bad reputation. In December, Pres. Trump vetoed a critical $740 billion military funding bill because Congress...

07/13/2020

... got quoted in HuffPo again.

The country band claims a blues singer who has performed as "Lady A" for two decades wanted $10 million for the name.

05/08/2020

Seriously, it's a nightmare scenario.

Imagine an Internet where the law required every message sent to be read by government-approved scanning software. Companies that handle such messages wouldn’t be allowed to securely encrypt them, or they’d lose legal protections that allow them to operate.Take ActionStop the Graham-Blumenthal.....

02/13/2020

ProTip: Use Firefox Container for Facebook via browser to quash most tracking. Also install EFF's "Privacy Badger" on all your browsers to block tracking cookies and much more.

01/16/2020

This is messed up. It has long been established that a TLD (.com, .org, etc.) added to a word or phrase is not considered in determining whether the word/phrase itself is eligible for trademark protection. Some courts thought otherwise, so now the Supremes have a chance to muck it up (or not).

EFF often criticizes the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) for granting bad patents, but a case in the Supreme Court has us on the same side.On Monday, EFF filed an amicus brief asking the court to reject trademark protection for “Booking.com,” pointing out that other travel companies that use.....

05/03/2019

Sales call from some company who wants to get me some TV ads. I said, "I am an internet lawyer; the last thing I care about is being on TV." She laughed and said thanks, they'll leave me alone. That doesn't happen much.

01/23/2019

The APIs that ad blockers depend on are also popular among malicious extensions.

12/21/2018

Looks like (finally) some generally smart cryptocurrency legislation is in the works.

Two congressmen are introducing a bill that would exclude digital currencies from the decades-old definition of a security.