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 an era of content creation, social media influencers are tasked with the creative job of building a personal brand to influence the general public’s purchasing decisions and lifestyle choices. Creating a brand identity...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
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
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
With over one billion websites on the Internet, and 211 million items of online content created every minute, it should come as no surprise that content curation is one of the hottest trends in the Internet industry. We are...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
In this election season, we hear a lot of complaints about laws stifling business innovation. And there is no doubt that some laws have this effect. But what about laws that spur innovation, that result in the creation...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
Hector recently graduated from UC Berkeley and is anxious about his upcoming job interview. He is about to enter the adult world. But he has also got a bigger problem: When he was 17, he was not as wise as he is now at the...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
Traditionally, media companies (as well as non-media companies) almost exclusively utilized their own content. However, because of the exponential growth in the public’s desire and ability to interconnect through social media...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
Companies are looking for online interaction with customers, a solid presence on social media, and other dynamic ways to connect with potential consumers. Often, this means campaigns and their websites will rely on some form...more
The general legal advice to website operators who allowed User Generated Content (UGC) in the form of comments, videos or pictures used to be relatively easy....more
When you think of “Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly, “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry, and “My Girl” by the Temptations, you think classic, iconic, rock and roll. Now, in light of the most recent legal setback against music sharing...more