Balough
November 1, 2017
(November 1, 2017) A United Kingdom company sending a single newsletter to a small number of recipients in California where the company has no customers is not sufficient to maintain a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the case brought by Axion Foods, Inc. and Growing Naturals, […]
Balough
February 18, 2016
(February 18, 2016) It was not a Hollywood movie but a real life ransomware attack that shut down the enterprise-wide hospital information system of an acute care facility for 10 days. Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center said it paid 40 Bitcoins or about $17,000 in ransom to obtain a decryption key to unlock its information system. […]
Balough
December 16, 2015
(December 16, 2015) A new surge in ransomware attacks is underway, posing a threat to businesses and consumers, Symantec Corporation says. The computer security company said attackers are encrypting files and demanding ransom by using an updated version of the ransomware program TeslaCrypt. Over the past two weeks, attackers have sent “out massive volumes of […]
Balough
November 6, 2015
(November 6, 2015) Don’t have time to draft a response to your emails? No need to worry. Gmail will draft a response for you. Google is rolling out a new Gmail feature called Smart Reply, which determines what emails need an answer and then gives you three suggested responses based upon the emails you receive. […]
Balough
December 13, 2014
In a reversal of previous practice, employees may use their employer’s email system for labor organizing, the National Labor Relations Board ruled. The new case involved the right of employees to “communicate with one another regarding self-organization at the jobsite” under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. In 2007 the NLRB had found […]
Balough
December 15, 2013
Sending a summary of stock recommendations via the Internet is neither copyright infringement nor can the information be protected as “hot news,” a federal appellate court found. Several brokerage firms, which send out or telephone stock recommendations to clients early in the morning, sued Theflyonthewall.com (Fly) for emailing and posting on its website a summary of […]
Balough
December 15, 2013
A short post on a listserv lacks creativity to be copyrighted, and even if it were creative, forwarding the post to others is fair use, a California federal court found. The listserv post was made by an attorney who was seeking information regarding a certified public accounting firm, which he believed had billed excessive hours […]
Balough
December 15, 2013
Using multiple nonsensical domain names for commercial email advertisements to by-pass spam filters does not violate California’s anti-spam statute as long as the domain names actually exist.The California Supreme Court found because the domain names “actually exist and are technically accurate, literally correct, and fully traceable to Vonage’s marketing agents,” their use does not violate the state’s […]
