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Intellectual Property
The City owed no duty to the child of a taxpayer to protect the child from harmful materials on the Internet.
In Kathleen R. v. City of Livermore (2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 684, 104 Cal.App.2d 772, a taxpayer brought suit against the city for wasting public funds, nuisance, premises liability and denial of substantive due process arising out of her minor son's use of the Internet on the city library's computer to download sexually-explicit materials without her knowledge. The trial court sustained the city's demurrer without leave to amend, and plaintiff appealed.
In affirming the decision of the lower court, the First District Court of Appeals ruled that plaintiff's state law causes of action for wasting public funds, nuisance, and premises liability were preempted by federal law, that no special relationship existed between the child and the city giving rise to a duty to protect the child from harmful material on the Internet, and the library's open Internet access policy did not result in a state-created danger giving rise to a duty to protect the child from harmful materials on the Internet. The court noted that the government has an interest in protecting minors from harmful materials on the Internet, but it does not have a constitutional duty to do so.
Claims of misappropriation of name, photograph and likeness
are not equivalent to a copyright infringement claim, so are
not pre-empted by Federal copyright law.
In K N B Enterprises v. Matthews (2000) 78 CalApp.4th
362, 92 Cal.Rptr.2d 713, the owner of a copyright to erotic
photographs of models which had been displayed without authorization,
and for profit, on an Internet website brought suit against
the operator of the website asserting statutory claims for
misappropriation of name, photograph and/or likeness. The
trial court entered summary judgment for the website operator
on the basis that the claims were pre-empted by Federal copyright
law. The Second District reversed, holding that the misappropriation
claims asserted were not equivalent to a copyright infringement
claim, and therefore were not pre-empted by Federal law.
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