Informed observers should regard pronouncement of social media law as tentative. The traditional rules applicable to social interactions may apply, or may apply differently, in the context of social media. In other respects, social media may upend traditional notions of legal status and privacy.
Most observers believe the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits copying of DVDs, even for backup purposes. Now Real Networks is challenging that conventional wisdom in California.
Here are my six rules of engagement for social media — Twitter, Facebook, etc.– all of which can be summed up in the phrase “if you are going to do it, do it right.”
SciFi Channel is all set to become Syfy. But no, despite what CNet News implies, it is not the lawyers’ fault.
Facebook was possibly wrong (although correct from a customer relationship standpoint) to argue that it needed a license from one user to display his/her content on the “Wall” of another user, even when the first person had affirmatively decided to share that UGC by posting it within Facebook.
Rob Glaser and company are about to launch a new software product that, if ruled lawful under the DMCA, may revolutionize movie distribution.
Tiffany’s high-priced lawyers lost their argument that there was so much counterfeit merchandise sold on eBay the company had a legal obligation to police its auctions when a federal court rebuffed efforts to apply troubling French trademark decisions in the US.
It was bad enough with Amazon’s “one-click” patent, but now we’ve got insurance patents, order-processing patents and other patents for what are not inventions, but just ideas. Of course ideas are creative and deserve protection, but they should not be patentable.