PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - Advertising & Customer Engagement in the Digital Age - Customer Reviews and Response
New Developments in the World of Section 230
PATIENT PRIVACY IN AN ERA OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Are websites legally responsible for content posted by their users?
Stealth Lawyer: Zach Abramowitz, 'Blogcaster'
In recent years, the advent of the social media “influencer” has revolutionized advertising. Companies often partner with influencers to market their products, hoping to tap into the influencer’s devoted audience. Likewise,...more
As a YouTube creator myself (check out my popular legal information channel here), I have recently come to post "short" videos. These are videos under one minute, where I usually post them as a "teaser" and post a link to...more
In today's rapidly changing technological landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) is making headlines and being discussed constantly. To be sure, AI provides a powerful tool to nonprofits in creating content and exploiting...more
In a putative class action filed on June 28, 2023, in the Northern District of California, and in other similar cases, plaintiffs allege that OpenAI, Microsoft, and their respective affiliates violated the privacy rights of...more
The U.S. Copyright Office has denied an attempt to register copyright in images created using the Midjourney generative AI tool. The reasoning of its decision sharply limits the potential paths to receiving copyright in...more
The current COVID-19 pandemic has forced many businesses online in order to survive. In many cases, businesses had no plans to be online. Others were forced to move online more quickly than planned. In order to assist these...more
In 2019, the Council of the European Union’s Committee of Permanent Representatives approved a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market to respond to developments in the modes and markets for creation, production...more
The German Federal Supreme Court presses the EU Court of Justice to clarify when online platforms are liable under EU law for damages for copyright infringements by content made available by their users. Content uploaded...more
In September 2016, the European Commission, which is the executive cabinet for the European Union, issued a Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. On...more
In the classic rock song “Light My Fire,” ‘60s icon and the Doors’ lead singer Jim Morrison sang, “The time to hesitate is through.” If your company operates a website or blog that hosts user-generated content, and has yet...more
The controversial consumer gripe site, RipoffReport.com, is at it again. The First Circuit recently affirmed a lower court’s ruling that RipoffReport.com was entitled to immunity under Section 230 of the Communications...more
We discussed last year the trend toward companies seeking to monetize user-generated content. A recent Central District of California decision in Greg Young Publishing, Inc. v. Zazzle, Inc. serves as an important reminder of...more
Online Service Providers Re-File Your DMCA Agent Designations to Prevent Expiration - If your company has a website that allows third parties to post any kind of content (text, pictures or video), then it may be liable...more
Thanks to recent decisions by the First and Second Circuit Courts of Appeals, tech companies will remain protected from liability for some of their users’ uploaded content under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and...more
On December 1, 2016, the US Copyright Office outlined a new online procedure for websites, hosting companies, mobile app publishers and other internet services that permit user-generated content (service providers) to...more
If your company operates a website or blog that hosts user-generated content, you’ll want to read this post carefully. We’re ringing the alarm bell on an important new U.S. copyright law development that, if ignored,...more
If your website allows for posting of user-generated content and you filed an agent designation insulating you from copyright infringement claims, you may be about to lose that legal protection. All existing paper-filed agent...more
We’re in the midst of a seismic shift in how companies interact with user-generated content (UGC). For years, companies were happy simply to host UGC on their websites, blogs and social media pages and reap the resulting...more
Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) offers safe harbors for qualifying service providers to limit their liability for claims of copyright infringement. To benefit from the Section 512(c) safe harbor, a...more
As user-generated content explodes over the Internet, intellectual property disputes over posting or uploading such content without the owner’s consent continue to escalate. As we touched on in a recent post, social media...more
On June 30, 2015, a New York court provided a good excuse for anyone with an interactive website to double-check that its copyright agent designations with the U.S. Copyright Office are complete and accurate. Don’t know what...more
There are so many legal issues in Episode 15 that it’s hard to know where to begin, so I’m going to start at the end: porn. Pied Piper is competing against nemesis Endframe for a $15 million contract from the online porn...more
The recent case of Oppenheimer v. Allvoices is, if nothing else, a cautionary tale for everyone who wants to start the next big social networking site or provide any internet service with user-generated content. The moral is...more
Vimeo, the online video service, is seeking leave to appeal to the Second Circuit on the issue of whether sound recordings made prior to 1972 are covered by the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act...more