Dear Doc: The United States Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §§101 et seq. – see, I can lawyer-speak!) was passed more than 40 years ago, in 1976. Back then, the Internet was the ARPANet, there was no World Wide Web, no twittering (except among groups of birds or young women, and no, we don’t say that […]
Internet Law
Emoji Madness
January 18, 2018
Internet Law
An Israeli landlord places an online ad for an apartment and obtains a response from an interested renter. According to reports, the renter wrote (original in Hebrew): Based upon several follow-up communications, the landlord removes his online advertisement. A few days later, the would-be renters disappear. What’s a landlord to do? He’s a businessman so […]
There are many misconceptions about posting images on websites and social media. They range from believing everything online is free-for-the-taking to assuming that if you give attribution of ownership to an image, you’re not infringing someone’s copyright. These assumptions are just plain wrong. Just ask anybody who’s received a cease and desist letter and ended […]
LWH Scores Another Success Against Domainer
September 30, 2014
Internet Law
Lipton, Weinberger & Husick (“LWH”) recently scored another success against domainer, Marchex, Inc. Here’s some background. Domainers – those who speculate in domain names – set up web sites for purposes of selling a domain or obtaining pay-per-click revenues. When the domain is identical or similar to another company’s trademark, trademark owners will attempt to […]
Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.1
June 28, 2014
Internet Law
A cyber security firm called Norse maintains what it claims to be a dynamic, real-time map of cyber attacks as they happen, showing cities of origin and targets. The first thing you’ll do after viewing this constantly-changing map is update your security software. The second is to clean the cobwebs out of your filing cabinet. […]
New gTLD’s … New Burdens
March 30, 2014
Internet Law
You may recall that we reported about “one of the biggest changes in the Domain Name System” was about to be implemented by ICANN, which was introducing hundreds of new top level domains that could “end with almost any word in any language.” So, instead of such dependable and familiar domains like “nike.com” and “nikon.com”, […]
Terms of Service Didn’t Read
February 28, 2013
Internet Law
If you thought reading privacy policies was a was a waste of time you were right. The Carnegie Mellon Institute calculated that it would take 10 minutes to read the privacy policies of the 75 most popular websites at the standard reading rate of 250 words per minute. The medium length of privacy policies from […]
Check Those Employee Handbooks!
January 31, 2013
Internet Law
There have been a spate of reporting about the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) recent decisions about the use of social media by employees. You may think that an employer should have absolute control over its employees’ right to talk about the employer or its customers on the Internet, but that is not the case. […]
Privacy in the Age of Apps
December 31, 2012
Internet Law
If you use or develop online software or smartphone “apps” then you need to know about CalOPPA. No, that’s not some form of steam-driven musical device from an old-time carousel. It’s the California Online Privacy Protection Act, and it has very real consequences for any company that does business online. This month, the State of California […]
Here’s another Internet copyright conundrum. Assume you have a social networking website where you let users post links or bookmarks to their favorite videos from all over the Internet. To view the videos, a visitor clicks on a link and the video is streamed into a video frame much like you see on YouTube. Many […]