Copyright Law Blog

Blog Sites Beware: Liability Lurks in Bloggers’ Postings

August 2nd, 2009 at 12:39am Under copyright infringement

If your site allows visitors to post digital files or comments (e.g. in an online blog, as well as in a forum or chat room), you could be held liable for copyright infringement if any of their postings infringe the rights of another person, even if you are unaware of the infringement. Under general copyright principles, you would be strictly liable for their copyright infringement, even if you are “innocent”.

You could also be liable for defamatory statements posted by bloggers.

The Playboy Case And Copyright Infringement

A good example of an “innocent infringer’s” liability that occurred before the enactment of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is the case of Playboy Enter., Inc. v. Frena, 839 F. Supp. 1552 (M.D. Fla. 1993). In this case, Playboy alleged that the defendants who operated a bulletin board service (BBS) were liable for copyright infringement. Subscribers to the defendants’ BBS had illegally taken copyrighted photos owned by Playboy and uploaded them onto the defendants’ BBS.

The court found the defendants liable for copyright infringement, despite the fact that the defendants did not upload the photos (the subscribers uploaded them), and the defendants were unaware of the presence of the infringing photos until the lawsuit was filed.

The court stated: “…intent or knowledge is not an element of infringement, and thus even an innocent infringer is liable for infringement …”.

The DMCA, enacted in 1998, provided a “safe harbor” so that this harsh result can be avoided, but service providers must take affirmative steps to qualify for it… or else you will suffer the same harsh fate as Frena.

To qualify for the DMCA “safe harbor” from strict copyright liability, you are required:

* to post a specific notice on your site (Terms of Use); and

* to file the DMCA Registration Form with the US Copyright Office.

Liability For Defamatory Statements

In addition to liability for the copyright infringement of bloggers, another pitfall to avoid if you permit visitors to post to your site is liability for their defamatory comments about another person, a competitor, or another product.

Defamation is an intentional false communication, made either orally or in writing, published to a third party, which injures another person or company’s good name or reputation.

While it is clear you will be liable for defamatory statements posted by you or your employees on your site, what about defamatory statements posted by bloggers? Will you be liable?

Statements which consist of pure opinion are not actionable… however, merely stating that a statement is pure opinion does not make it so. For example, a law school professor was awarded $3 million in damages arising out of defamatory statements published on a student’s site.

Online defamation may occur in the context of product reviews where strong statements are posted such as “do not buy this product because it will not perform as advertised”.

In addition, actionable defamation may occur where a site publishes untrue promotional statements about a person or company. For example, in one recent case, the Wall Street Journal was sued by the Harrods department store for publishing the statement that Harrods was the “Enron of Britain”.

Congress came to the rescue of “interactive computer services” in 1996 with subsection (c) of the Communications Decency Act which provides: “No provider or user of any interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 47 USCA Sec. 230(c)(referred to below as “Section 230″).

Section 230 was intended to overrule prior case law which routinely held that online providers were liable as publishers and speakers for third party content. Now, under Section 230, absent an affirmative showing by a plaintiff that an online service provider is the author of a defamatory message, email, or post, the provider should almost always avoid liability for defamation. In other words, if you or your employees are the authors of defamatory statements, you’ll still be liable, but if your website visitors are the authors of defamatory material, you won’t be liable.

A word of warning about another pitfall — be careful in assuming an obligation to monitor messages, email, or posts contributed by your site visitors or in exercising editorial control over them. If you assume an obligation to monitor, or if you maintain editorial control, and if you fail to screen out defamatory statements, you may be liable, despite the protections of Section 230.

For this reason, your Terms of Use should clearly state the extent to which you exercise editorial control, if at all, over messages, email, or posts of site visitors. And it’s always best to reserve the right to monitor postings, but not the obligation to monitor.

Conclusion In summary, if you have a blog, take the steps discussed above that are required to qualify for the DMCA “safe harbor” from copyright infringement. Ensure that that your employees do not post defamatory statements on your blog, and affirmatively disclaim any obligation to monitor posts by bloggers.

Online Business Copyrights and Disciplines

July 30th, 2009 at 12:41pm Under copyright law

Online businesses do best with online marketing. Online opportunity and online work is, at the moment, at its zenith. Online communities help me connect Defining Collaboration Communities and Collaboration Web 2. Perhaps a better way of stating the issue is: What should you do to make online work successful in your work area. Most people manage by deadlines, and making decisions based on the online input keeps it real. People need to know what they are expected to do when they come to the online work area.

Creative Commons licenses attach to the work and authorize everyone who comes in contact with the work to use it consistent with the license. Creative Commons licenses are expressed in three different formats: the Commons Deed (human-readable code), the Legal Code (lawyer-readable code); and the metadata (machine readable code). Creative Commons licenses give you the ability to dictate how others may exercise your copyright rights—such as the right of others to copy your work, make derivative works or adaptations of your work, to distribute your work and/or make money from your work.

You will want to check to see that the online program you are interested in provides solid, standards-based content, is an accredited program, and the instructors are licensed by the state certification agency in the subject area of the course. (There are some strong and mixed views about whether that would fly in a court if one is licensed as a counselor or therapist. The issue of license portability also was raised, specifically in the context of forensic evaluation as an expert, but of course the notion of having cooperation between states would have greater implications for the profession as more consultation of all varieties becomes easier to do through the use of technology. The license is a statement as to what others may do with your work, so you should select a license that matches what you are happy for others to do with your work. Finally, you can also consult with a lawyer to obtain advice on the best license for your needs.

What information should your organization know, but you don’t. This information will get you started as you explore the online learning opportunity. If you want to see how this online endeavor works, check out some of the information for the other “audiences,” like the online teacher. The manager needs intelligent courseware and user interfaces, tailored to his level, without commercial `fuzzy information but with opportunities for in-depth study. For example, keep a backup copy of files on a home computer so you can e-mail important information to students.

The contractor shall provide technical and analysis support to the government in support of the USMCC mission and COSPAS-SARSAT. -provide technical support for the analysis of false alarms and interferers, the definition of service areas, the addition of new [Search and Rescue Point of Contacts], the evaluation of new COSPAS-SARSAT related technology, and the commissioning of new MCCs. In support of its contention that the work is beyond the scope of SSAI’s contract, the protester points to the language in the SOW that expressly provides that SSAI is not responsible for maintaining any proprietary software, the fact that no express language covering the work is contained in the contract, the fact that when SSAI’s contract was let Techno-Sciences was responsible for maintaining the proprietary online software, and the fact that costs under the contract have exceeded the estimated price of the work.

NOAA responds that the work being performed by SSAI under these task orders is within the scope of SSAI’s contract because of the broad language of the technical support section of the SOW, which was said to cover support of the entire COSPAS-SARSAT mission as well as the USMCC effort–both online and offline functions–with the sole exception of maintaining Techno-Sciences’s proprietary software. The record shows that the express purpose of the SSAI contract is to provide NOAA with the required support necessary to operate and maintain the USMCC. Consistent with this purpose, the language in the scope of work broadly defines technical support to include, among other things, analysis of new or changing Cospas-Sarsat requirements, and other support as required by the Cospas-Sarsat mission. C of the SOW specifically requires SSAI to provide technical and analysis support to the government in support of the USMCC mission and Cospas-Sarsat, without any stated restrictions.

The Open University Business School (UK) is a pioneer in identifying competencies of online coaches. An advisory committee of business, government, and educational leaders was formed and met annually to provide input to the hubsite managers. In fact, many companies have used patents to protect novel ways of doing business on the Web. However, it’s advisable to officially register the copyright for Web content that has high business value, since official registration provides irrefutable proof of authorship. Creating and Managing Information Security Policies Survey: Companies disregard data security breach risks Blogging on corporate laptops is risky business Convergence of security and network management has pros and cons Embarking on the ISO 17799 certification trail How can a CSO take ownership of a security program. The goal of any online business is to sell something, be it a product, service, or information. Your web site should reflect how you want customers to feel about your business. One of the top Internet business strategies is to choose relevant keywords for the most efficient search engine optimization.

”The article includes research on tipping points and a review of issues involved in building successful networks. Online work is organized according to workshop topics. Each workshop has its own folder with work related to that workshop in the folder. Also make sure to follow these rules of “Netiquette” to make sure your work is the best it can be: Give credit in your works cited list to anyone whose work you use. This overview focuses on copyright, which explicitly protects “original works of authorship. For online works created after 1977, copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of author. For online works, you apply a Creative Commons license to a work by selecting the license that suits your preferences. For offline works, you should identify which Creative Commons license you wish to apply to your work and then mark your work either: (a) with a statement such as “This work is licensed under the Creative Commons [insert description] License. The only difference between applying a Creative Commons license to an offline work and applying it to an online work is that offline works will not include the metadata and, consequently, will not be identified via Creative Commons-customized search engines. So they apply to all works that are protected by copyright law.

One of the largest benefits in working online is that the work is immediately archived — that is, it is available to everyone, anytime they want to access it. Working online is also, in some ways, more secure. Does online working save time because people do not have to meet anymore. Best practice human resource strategies would give particular attention not only to better job design and different working conditions associated with online work, but also to sophisticated strategies for building and sustaining work and knowledge networks. The online work uses the World Wide Web and we areworking to develop an increasingly user-friendly environment for this networking.

Seo – Copyright Issues – What You Need To Know

July 30th, 2009 at 06:41am Under copyright law

The minute you upload something online you become a publisher. As an online publisher it is your responsibility to know a little bit about copyright law. This book is not a legal guide however here are some of the basic things that you need to know about blogging on the Internet.
First of all if you are going to copy someone else’s material you must ask permission first. This means contacting the author or the publisher and asking them for reprint rights. However sometimes the availability rights are printed right on the article along with information that you must credit to the author. This could include the date of original publication, where it was first published or the name of the publisher if it is from a book. Some articles may not be quoted or reprinted from unless you also provide a link to the URL of the author’s choice.
Crediting an article to its rightful source is called attribution. You must always attribute the work of others and you must do it every time you quote from the article. This is true of direct quotes and paraphrasing. You can’t condense someone else’s writing and then assume that the readers will know that it belongs to ideas that are quoted earlier on in the article. That is called plagiarism.
Another important copyright issue is “fair use.” This is a legally defined terms that allows U.S. citizens to copy and distribute the work of others as long as they adhere to certain legal terms. For instance, in the United States bloggers are allowed to quote sentences and short passages as long as the quote is credited to the author.
However giving credit is sometimes not enough and length may have a great deal to do with what you can replicate on the web. For instance you cannot copy and distribute your favorite piece of music through a web blog. Also laws vary from country to country. Don’t fall for the common myth that it is somehow all right to copy material by writers from other countries just because it is the Internet.

Blog Sites Beware: Liability Lurks in Bloggers’ Postings

July 26th, 2009 at 12:35pm Under copyright act

If your site allows visitors to post digital files or comments (e.g. in an online blog, as well as in a forum or chat room), you could be held liable for copyright infringement if any of their postings infringe the rights of another person, even if you are unaware of the infringement. Under general copyright principles, you would be strictly liable for their copyright infringement, even if you are “innocent”.

You could also be liable for defamatory statements posted by bloggers.

The Playboy Case And Copyright Infringement

A good example of an “innocent infringer’s” liability that occurred before the enactment of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is the case of Playboy Enter., Inc. v. Frena, 839 F. Supp. 1552 (M.D. Fla. 1993). In this case, Playboy alleged that the defendants who operated a bulletin board service (BBS) were liable for copyright infringement. Subscribers to the defendants’ BBS had illegally taken copyrighted photos owned by Playboy and uploaded them onto the defendants’ BBS.

The court found the defendants liable for copyright infringement, despite the fact that the defendants did not upload the photos (the subscribers uploaded them), and the defendants were unaware of the presence of the infringing photos until the lawsuit was filed.

The court stated: “…intent or knowledge is not an element of infringement, and thus even an innocent infringer is liable for infringement …”.

The DMCA, enacted in 1998, provided a “safe harbor” so that this harsh result can be avoided, but service providers must take affirmative steps to qualify for it… or else you will suffer the same harsh fate as Frena.

To qualify for the DMCA “safe harbor” from strict copyright liability, you are required:

* to post a specific notice on your site (Terms of Use); and

* to file the DMCA Registration Form with the US Copyright Office.

Liability For Defamatory Statements

In addition to liability for the copyright infringement of bloggers, another pitfall to avoid if you permit visitors to post to your site is liability for their defamatory comments about another person, a competitor, or another product.

Defamation is an intentional false communication, made either orally or in writing, published to a third party, which injures another person or company’s good name or reputation.

While it is clear you will be liable for defamatory statements posted by you or your employees on your site, what about defamatory statements posted by bloggers? Will you be liable?

Statements which consist of pure opinion are not actionable… however, merely stating that a statement is pure opinion does not make it so. For example, a law school professor was awarded $3 million in damages arising out of defamatory statements published on a student’s site.

Online defamation may occur in the context of product reviews where strong statements are posted such as “do not buy this product because it will not perform as advertised”.

In addition, actionable defamation may occur where a site publishes untrue promotional statements about a person or company. For example, in one recent case, the Wall Street Journal was sued by the Harrods department store for publishing the statement that Harrods was the “Enron of Britain”.

Congress came to the rescue of “interactive computer services” in 1996 with subsection (c) of the Communications Decency Act which provides: “No provider or user of any interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 47 USCA Sec. 230(c)(referred to below as “Section 230″).

Section 230 was intended to overrule prior case law which routinely held that online providers were liable as publishers and speakers for third party content. Now, under Section 230, absent an affirmative showing by a plaintiff that an online service provider is the author of a defamatory message, email, or post, the provider should almost always avoid liability for defamation. In other words, if you or your employees are the authors of defamatory statements, you’ll still be liable, but if your website visitors are the authors of defamatory material, you won’t be liable.

A word of warning about another pitfall — be careful in assuming an obligation to monitor messages, email, or posts contributed by your site visitors or in exercising editorial control over them. If you assume an obligation to monitor, or if you maintain editorial control, and if you fail to screen out defamatory statements, you may be liable, despite the protections of Section 230.

For this reason, your Terms of Use should clearly state the extent to which you exercise editorial control, if at all, over messages, email, or posts of site visitors. And it’s always best to reserve the right to monitor postings, but not the obligation to monitor.

Conclusion In summary, if you have a blog, take the steps discussed above that are required to qualify for the DMCA “safe harbor” from copyright infringement. Ensure that that your employees do not post defamatory statements on your blog, and affirmatively disclaim any obligation to monitor posts by bloggers.

Click Here and Find Out How to Shut Down Article Plagiarism

July 25th, 2009 at 12:35pm Under copyright act

Writing informational articles for the Web is a good way to establish oneself as an authority on any topic. Creating articles is also very effective in generating traffic for your website. However, deceitful authors can plagiarize your work (with very little effort). Read on for advice and tips to cope with copyright violations.

A few lazy individuals have plagiarized a number of my articles for their blogs and websites. These sloths deliberately copied my hard work, verbatim, without my biography and Internet links. So far, dishonest webmasters with Google adSense blogs or directories have committed all violations.

I decided to nose around until I pinpointed contact information for the violators. However, these troublemakers are usually adept at concealing e-mail addresses and configuring blogs so that nobody is able to post comments.

As a result, I contacted Google. Google has zero tolerance for copyright infringements. Such violations reflect poorly on their corporate image, and they respond rapidly to legitimate complaints. Performing a search for: ‘digital millennium copyright act google.com’ will locate a page with full instructions and company contact information. The page also displays links to appropriate websites with more particulars about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

My next step was to contact the hosting company for each of the violators. It is often difficult to unearth a valid e-mail address. You can try generic addresses like abuse@’hostingwebsite’, info@’hostingwebsite’, webmaster@’hostingwebsite’, etc. You may have to visit the webhost online and complete a support request. Alternatively, you may need to spend some time on the telephone.

My final action was to type out a document similar to the one below. I then faxed it to Google and the hosting companies, while I continued to monitor the violating websites. In some cases, pirated content would disappear for a few days, and then the bootlegged articles would reappear.— BEGIN SAMPLE COPYRIGHT VIOLATION DOCUMENT —

All of the articles on the following pages are a violation of my intellectual copyright and the copyright of the article directory from which they were copied:

(Link to first web page)

(Link to second web page)

(Link to third web page), etc.

The articles were copied from here:

(Link to author summary webpage at article directory from which articles were plagiarized)

The copied text blatantly violates the publisher’s terms of service, clearly linked to on the above page:

(Link to the article directory’s terms of service page)

Every article is a direct copy and paste of my work from the above article directory, without the applicable copyright notice and links to my site or to the article directory, as required in their terms of service.

I hereby avow, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in this notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner.

Type your name here.

Sign here.— END SAMPLE COPYRIGHT VIOLATION DOCUMENT —

You may have to change the wording of the document to match whatever is appropriate for your situation. It is important to provide complete contact information: your postal/email addresses and fax/cell/telephone numbers.

Remember to include a copyright notice with each of your articles, similar to the one below. Let’s all work together to transform the Net into an honest environment; let’s clear out the vermin who prey on the intellectual property of others.

(c)Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author’s note below (with active links) are included.

Is A Blog Considered Intellectual Property?

July 15th, 2009 at 04:26pm Under intellectual property

If A blog is intellectual property, and a company has agreed to post them and store them on their server. What level of liability does that company hold if they are lost?

Is Posting A Story In My Blog Is Violation Of Copyright Law?

July 13th, 2009 at 04:24am Under copyright law

I found a website which has my favorite story in it. I like to copy it to my blog but i worried that i violate the copyright law because i have a google ads there.

May I Use Wikipedia Content In My Blog Without Violating The Copyright Law?

July 9th, 2009 at 04:26pm Under copyright law

May I use Wikipedia content in my blog without violating the copyright law? How can I do that? Explain in details please.