Monthly Archives: August 2011
Question: Can I blog about something I read in a book?
A reader from Illinois asks via facebook:
Dear Ask a Cyber Lawyer,
Is it legal to write blog postings about something I was reading in a book, if I say its from that book?
One of the services I provide through Skyles Law Group, LLC is training for journalists and bloggers on basic copyright law, so I am very familiar with copyright issues involving using outside sources.
In general, you can quote all you want from articles, as long as you cite where it is from somewhere in the article. If you are quoting from something you find online, it is a courtesy to link back to that webpage. Copyright is a tricky issue because technically, the use of copyrighted material is a violation of the owners copyright. The law has created a large amount of defenses to copyright violations, most prominently “fair use”, which allows for many exceptions where copyrighted sources can be used. Here are a few rules to follow.
1) If you block quote from an article, do not make it more than a few paragraphs.
2) In each blog post, make sure the original content is greater than the quoted content. This ads weight to the argument that the piece is an original work.
3) Again, if you cite an online source, always link back. They will appreciate the increase in SEO and traffic to their site.
4) Do not quote from Reuters or AP as a source. Reuters and AP are wire services that share articles only with sources that subscribe to their service. They are very trigger happy, and under the DCMA, it is shoot first, ask questions later. Once you get a DCMA takedown notice, you MUST COMPLY within 24 hours.
Other than that, have fun blogging!
Disclaimer: It is difficult to dispense comprehensive legal advice on the internet. If you find the information on this site interesting and insightful, great. But before you rely on any of this advice, please consult a legal professional with the specific details of your case or controversy.
Juror “Friends” Defendant, Gets Removed from Jury, Found in Contempt
Categorize this in the “what not to do on a jury” category. 
In Tarrant County, Texas, a young man named Jonathan Hudson sees a girl named Courtney Downing. He probably thinks she’s pretty cute, so in an effort to get to know her, he “friends” her on facebook. This scenario takes place on college campuses, high school halways, and office buildings every day. The problem is, this is not a classroom, it’s a courtroom, and Jonathan Hudson isn’t a student, he’s a juror. The girl he attempts to friend, is in fact the defendant. From the Star-Telegram:
Hudson was a juror on a Tarrant County civil case last month when he tried to “friend” the defendant and discussed the case on his Facebook page, according to court records. The woman notified her lawyer who, in turn, told the presiding judge, Wade Birdwell.
Last week, Hudson, 22, pleaded guilty to four counts of contempt of court related to the matter. He was sentenced to two days of community service, which will be chores assigned to him by the jury bailiff next month.
Officials in the Tarrant County district attorney’s office said this is the first instance they are aware of in which a juror used social media to contact a person involved in an ongoing case.
“I’ve never seen this before,” prosecutor Chris Ponder said. “But I’m afraid this is a new reality as the technology is so ubiquitous that we’ll have these types of things occur.”
I am sure this has the virtue of never having been tried. I am sure right now, lawyers are redrafting jury instructions to include “Do not engage in social interaction on the internet with the judge, prosecutor, defendant, defense attorneys, or any witness and their families”, or something to that effect. Not every cute girl has to be your “friend”.
Justin Bieber v. youtube.com and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act
This is a first for this blog. I am linking to an article from TMZ.
TMZ reported on Monday that youtube.com has taken down all of videos of Canadian pop singer, Justin Bieber, aka the Biebs, aka “What’s a Bieber”?
If you don’t know who Justin Bieber is, you probably live in a hole, and you definitely do not have a tweenaged daughter.
Reportedly, youtube received a complaint from a company called iLCreation claiming to own the copyright to the videos, including the famous (or infamous) “Baby” video, which has received over 600 million hits. That’s right, it has the number of hits equal to 10% of the world’s population. From TMZ:
YouTube has a yank first, ask questions later policy when a copyright claim is made — so they simply pulled the videos off the site … until the dispute is resolved.
This is where TMZ and its lawyer head guru Harvey Levin gets it wrong. Youtube doesn’t pull the video only because of its policy. It pulls the video because they are required to BY LAW.
Once a hosting site has received takedown notice, or a copyright infringement complaint, they MUST remove the video within 24 hours, in accordance with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998 (DCMA), or more specifically, Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA).
The process is simple, they receive the complaint, they must take down the video. Once the video is down, they notify the person who posted the video. Only then can the person who posted the video challenge the removal. It is a classic example of shoot first and ask questions later.
This provision of DCMA is very controversial because it is always in the hosts best interest to remove the video and wait for the situation to pan out. This gives incentive for businesses to use this provision of the DCMA to target their competition by sending false copyright claims. According to PC World, as of March 2009, 57% of complaints received by google were by businesses targeting their competitors, 37% of the complaints were invalid copyright claims.
Is this really what the law was intended to do?
QUESTION: Can I access my former employers server?
I received this email question from a loyal reader.
Dear Ask a Cyber Lawyer:
I recently left my job with my former employer. To smooth out the transition, I was given oral permission to access their email accounts and server. Is it OK for me to access the company email and server if they requested orally to do so? Is there any liability?
If you have oral permission to access the company email and servers, then there is no problem with you accessing the servers. However, the problem with oral agreements is that it is difficult to maintain evidence of that agreement. To solve this, here are a few suggestions.
1. Get an email from the person who gave you the permission merely stating that you have permission to access the email and the servers for the limited purpose of smoothing the transition.
2. Every time you log in to the email and the servers, send an email to the person who gave you permission stating what exactly what you accessed.
3. When you email the person who gave you permission, include the phrase “per your permission”, or something to that effect in the communications to be sure that both you and the other party know that you are doing this with authorization from the company.
The bottom line is, you have permission. The main purpose of the emails is to show “evidence” of that permission. Other than that, you should have nothing to worry about.
Disclaimer: It is difficult to dispense comprehensive legal advice on the internet. If you find the information on this site interesting and insightful, great. But before you rely on any of this advice, please consult a legal professional with the specific details of your case or controversy.
Your ISP may be gaming you for money
On August 4th, Reese Richman LLP, a New York Law Firm, filed a law suit against an as-of-yet undisclosed Internet Service Provider, alleging that the ISP is hijacking search queries for profit. How? allegedly, they are hijacking the search queries to gain affiliate dollars by driving traffic to specific sites. From Search Engine Watch:
According to Reese Richman, here’s how it works: Paxfire developed and patented a technology that would allow local ISPs to take control of a user’s search query when the user was targeting specified terms. Instead of connecting the search query as normal, the ISPs take users directly to a related site.
Why? The “related site” is typically an affiliate link related to the search term.
On the defense, as always, is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Peter Eckersley. They have developed an add-on to FireFox valled HTTPS Everywhere. HTTP is known the beginning of every address accessed vis-a-vis a search engine (as opposed to “file” or “ftp”, which are accessed through a direct connection with a particular computer or server). It stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol”. HTTPS is what appears when you are on a secured website, such as one where you enter in credit card information service. It stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secured”. What “HTTPS Everywhere” does is secure all the websites searched through the browser where the add-on is attached, as if it were the type of secured site you could send extremely personal information, ie- not hijack-able.
So in short, the advice of the day is, download FireFox, use it exclusively, add add onto it “HTTP Everywhere”, from our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
James Skyles
