By Eleanor M. Lackman & Jennette Wiser The newest trend in social media, with over 10 million members and drawing 11.7 million viewers each month according to comScore, is the virtual scrapbooking site Pinterest. Pinterest allows members to upload their favorite images from the Internet or their computers and share them immediately with other members.

On February 23, 2012, the White House released Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation in the Global Digital Economy (the “Framework”). The Framework is meant to improve consumers’ privacy protections without stifling the sort of innovation and economic growth that companies seek via the digital space.

In a new turn in the Google Books case we have been following, Google filed its responses on February 17, 2012 to the American Society of Media Photographers’ (ASMP) and the Authors Guild’s oppositions to Google’s motions to dismiss ASMP and the Authors Guild for lack of standing. Google took issue with the Plaintiffs’ assertions.

Update: In an update to the below, on Thursday, April 5, 2012, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals revived and remanded the case to a lower court, instructing the district judge to determine if YouTube had knowledge or awareness of specific infringing material and whether it willfully blinded itself to that specific knowledge. Please

The Topps Company recently released a set of “American Heroes” trading cards which include well-known politicians, actors, athletes, scientists and events. Famed astronaut Buzz Aldrin attempted to block the release of certain cards believing the cards improperly incorporate his name, likeness and image in a commercial manner. The cards in question include the famous “Visor

The new .xxx top-level domain (TLD), designed to cater to the online adult entertainment community, is now available for registrations. But brand owners with registered trademarks outside that industry have a limited opportunity to defensively block registrations before the operator of a pornographic website claims BRAND.xxx – as long as the brand owner acts before

In California, a Federal Court Judge denied the defendent’s — Madonna’s — Motion for Summary Judgment that she is the “senior trademark user” of the “Material Girl” mark. This now clears the path for a lawsuit by the plaintiff, clothing company L.A. Triumph, which has sold a “Material Girl clothing line since 1997.

In a lawsuit against the band Green Day, by Derek Seltzer (an L.A. Based Artist), the U.S. District Court Judge ruled in favor of Green Day in a motion for summary judgment on the basis of their fair use defense. Seltzer accused Green Day of violating his intellectual property rights through their unauthorized use of,

In a new twist in the Google Books case, it appears that the publishers and authors may be going separate ways. The parties had a conference with Judge Denny Chin this past Thursday, September 15th. Judge Chin had admonished the parties in the last conference on July 20th to hasten their settlement discussion and to

On September 16, 2011, the First Circuit reversed the district court’s opinion in Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum — which found a jury verdict awarding statutory damages to plaintiffs to be unconstitutional and reduced the amount of damages on that ground — thereby reinstating the jury’s award of $675,000 to the plaintiff copyright holders.