The Digital Justice Foundation advocates for, educates about, and defends individual rights in the digital age
DJF
Technology and Law
About Us

The Digital Justice Foundation

We provide legal services that advance the cause of digital justice, ensuring that traditional notions of justice and civil liberties continue to thrive in the digital age. In an age of rapid technological development, entrenched interests often drown out individual voices. We are committed to ensuring that technology and civil rights and liberties develop hand-in-hand.

Copyright & Fair Use

Protecting the rights of individual creators in the digital age

Civil Liberties

Advocating for privacy rights and individual freedoms online

Technology Law

Addressing regulation of AI, data privacy, and cybersecurity

Access to Justice

Expanding legal resources through innovative technology solutions

Mission Statement

The Digital Justice Foundation ("DJF") advocates for individual rights in digital spaces and aims to ensure that traditional notions of justice and civil liberties continue to thrive in the digital age. In carrying out this mission, the DJF places a particular focus on being a voice for underrepresented individuals and interests.

The DJF's work in copyright law serves as an important cornerstone of this mission. Indeed, the DJF sees individual copyright protections as an integral part of a stable digital economy and well-functioning political system, advancing important humanistic values such as privacy, consent, and digital dignity.

While certain organizations feel that digital technologies have undermined the importance of copyright's protections, the DJF firmly believes that these technologies have made copyright more important than ever. For example, an often-overlooked consequence of the internet is that, for the first time in history, most citizens are now regular creators and publishers of content. The emergence of a content-creating public gives copyright's protections a newfound importance to a vastly wider class of citizens than in previous times.

Public debates on copyright should reflect this development. Yet the public's interest in copyright often goes unrepresented in the inter-industry disputes that shape the development of copyright law. To correct this absence, the Digital Justice Foundation is a committed advocate before courts and policymakers for the rights of individual creators and for the often-underappreciated public interest in their rights.

Beyond the copyright context, the DJF promotes and protects civil liberties, privacy rights and employee rights as they are affected by new technologies. For these reasons, the DJF and its attorneys have been at the forefront of emergent legal issues surrounding algorithmic discrimination and governmental adoption of new technologies to administer traditional government functions. The DJF is also exploring novel ways to harness the power of technology to expand access to law.

In an age of rapid technological development, entrenched interests often drown out individual voices and overshadow the development of individual rights. The DJF is committed to ensuring that technology and civil rights and liberties develop hand-in-hand.

Our Leadership

Meet Our Team

DJF’s lawyers are committed to tackling hard legal questions at the intersection of technology and law. We are honored to note that we have represented many clients, who could not otherwise obtain appellate counsel, in appeals raising novel and important legal questions. The Foundation’s appellate representation has helped establish new law in binding, precedential decisions at the appellate level across the nation.

Gregory Keenan

Co-Founder & Attorney

Digital Ethics Fellow at the Jain Family Institute. Specializes in copyright law and digital rights.

  • • J.D., Stanford Law School
  • • B.A., Claremont McKenna College
  • • State of New York
  • • U.S. Courts of Appeals (1st, 2nd, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th Circuits)

Andrew Grimm

Co-Founder & Attorney

Extensive experience in appellate litigation and constitutional law.

  • • J.D., Stanford Law School
  • • B.A., Claremont McKenna College
  • • State of Washington
  • • U.S. Supreme Court
  • • U.S. Courts of Appeals (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th Circuits, D.C.)

James David Banker

Co-Founder & Attorney

Focuses on technology law and civil liberties.

  • • J.D., Stanford Law School
  • • MPhil., University of Cambridge
  • • B.A., San Diego State University
  • • State of California
  • • District of Columbia
  • • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Our Impact

Legal Cases

We have successfully advocated for digital justice in federal courts across multiple circuits, establishing important precedents for copyright, civil liberties, and technology law.

Appellate Merits Victories

  • Greer v. Moon, 83 F.4th 1283 (10th Cir.), reh’g denied Dec. 4, 2023
    Holding that posting of unredacted DMCA notices in a manner designed to attract attention to infringing copies would constitute contributory copyright infringement.
  • Foss v. Eastern States Exposition, 67 F.4th 462 (1st Cir. 2023)
    Holding, in a case of first impression, that federal res judicata law recognizes the “alternative-determinations” doctrine, which strips a dismissal of claim preclusive effect if the dismissal rests on multiple grounds, not all of which would on their own render the dismissal claim preclusive.
  • Bell v. Wilmott Storage Services, LLC, 12 F.4th 1065 (9th Cir. 2021), reh’g denied Nov. 17, 2021
    Holding, inter alia, that copyright plaintiffs do not need to prove who viewed an online infringement and that there is no standalone de-minimis defense to infringement.
  • Designworks Homes, Inc. v. Columbia House of Brokers Realty, Inc., 9 F.4th 803 (8th Cir. 2021), reh’g denied Oct. 5, 2021
    Holding that 17 U.S.C. § 120(a) does not permit realtors to put floor plans of copyrighted homes and buildings online without the copyright owner’s authorization.
  • Grimm v. City of Portland, 971 F.3d 1060 (9th Cir. 2020), reh’g denied Nov. 13, 2020
    Holding, inter alia, that pre-towing notice is “presumptively required” and that the Mullane-Jones standard provides the proper test for the sufficient method of notice.

Appellate Amicus Contributions

  • Everly v. Everly, 958 F.3d 442 (6th Cir. 2020)
    Holding, inter alia, that an express repudiation of copyright ownership is insufficient to constitute an express repudiation of copyright authorship.
  • Mozilla Corp. v. FCC, 940 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2019), reh’g denied Feb. 6, 2020
    Holding that intervenors can raise new arguments in admin cases and that FCC rehearing is not needed to challenge FCC rationales as arbitrary and capricious. DJF filed as amicus curiae in support of neither party.
  • Brammer v. Violent Hues Prods., LLC, 922 F.3d 255 (4th Cir. Apr. 26, 2019)
    Holding that the easy availability of similar images under free license weighed against a finding that an unauthorized use of a copyrighted work was a fair use. DJF filed as amicus curiae in support of Russell Brammer and reversal.
  • Smith v. Thomas, 911 F.3d 378 (6th Cir. 2018) (citing and quoting DJF amicus brief at 382)
    Holding, inter alia, that the Copyright Act does not require specific formal procedures or magic words to elect statutory damages as the monetary remedy for infringement.
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