Healthy Blog Reviews

The next time you leave a scathing review of a business, you may want to make sure you are giving opinions and not stating falsehoods as facts. The former should see your speech protected. The latter could bring on the wrath of litigious cosmetic surgeon, determined to sue your butt for millions of dollars! That’s the case in California, where a doctor is suing critics that filed negative reviews on Yelp.com and DoctorScorecard.com. [Dr. Kimberly] Henry’s lawsuit, filed in Marin Superior Court, claims libel and defamation, invasion of privacy and interference with prospective economic advantage. She is seeking $1 million in general damages, $1 million in special damages, unspecified punitive damages, legal costs, injunctions against the reviewers and restraining orders. Twelve anonymous aliases have been listed and three defendants have actually been named in the case. How come three have been revealed? The naive owner of DoctorScorecard.com buckled upon receiving his first ever subpoena–quickly handing over the email and IP addresses of Henry’s critics. To be fair, you can’t blame him for handing over the info. Blame the even more naive judge that issued the court order! So, does the suit have any merit? I guess that is for the court to decide. Stating opinions is one thing, but defamation laws are so complex that you don’t even need to make outlandish statements of fact, before you run afoul of them. Still, if a judge decides that Henry’s suit is without merit, he could enforce California’s law against so-called SLAPPs–strategic lawsuits against public participation–which are lawsuits aimed to squelch free speech of online reviewers. Lastly, I’m left wondering why Henry didn’t simple give herself a nose-job and start again in a new city. ( via )

Tags: blame-the-even, California, court, general-damages, Henry, make-outlandish, marin-superior, over-the-info, scathing-review, speech
Posted July 15, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

YouTube has chalked one up for the distribution channel of videos. The Google Blog says it best so I’m going to let them say it: Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online. The key to this entire argument and result is that YouTube worked cooperatively. They didn’t pirate anything, per se. Copyrighted material that was on YouTube was taken down as pointed out by the Judge in the case. The Washington Post reports “When they (YouTube) received specific notice that a particular item infringed a copyright, they swiftly removed it,” Judge Louis Stanton, of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District Court of New York wrote in his summary judgement order released Wednesday. “It is uncontroverted that all the clips in suit are off the YouTube website, most having been removed in response to DMCA takedown notices.” Those actions protected Google from liability for copyright violations, the judge said. This ruling was of interest to others who filed friend-of-the-court briefs in favor of YouTube’s position. Among these ‘friends’ were Facebook, Yahoo and IAC/Interactive. It’s pretty obvious why they needed a YouTube victory here. Of course, Viacom disagrees and will appeal. They feel that the ruling is not honoring the spirit of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Oh well for now. Others on the outside think that this is a fair agreement. Public Knowledge, a public advocacy group, said the decision strikes a good balance for content and Web services companies. “The burden to point out allegations of infringement is with the content provider, and the burden of taking down material lies with the service provider,” said Sherwin Siy, deputy legal director of Public Knowledge. “Had Viacom won this case, that burden would have shifted dramatically. As the law now stands, prompt compliance with take-down notices shields an online service provider from liability.” Looks like this could all lead to the advent of a new cottage industry, OVM, otherwise known as online video monitoring / management. Hey Andy, do you have a solution for that?

Tags: court, digital, distribution, dmca, facebook, knowledge, rights, southern, summary, video, Yahoo, YouTube
Posted June 23, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

The online world is interesting for all of us when it comes to defining who we are. While it’s easy to call yourself a blogger what does that actually mean from a legal standpoint? How is a blogger truly defined when it comes to the legal side of the coin? A case in New Jersey has brought attention to the rights and protections provided to someone but whether it is about a blogger is something that seems to be up for debate. MediaPost’s report is titled “Jersey Court Rules Blogger Not Protected By Shield Law, Must Divulge Source ”. A pretty astounding headline but after reading the report I am not convinced this ruling is about bloggers at all. An appellate court in New Jersey has ruled that a woman who slammed the software company Too Much Media on a message board isn’t a “journalist” for purposes of the state’s shield law. The controversial ruling means that the post’s author, life coach Shellee Hale of Washington state, can be ordered to divulge her sources for her online remarks about Too Much Media, which is suing Hale for defamation. New Jersey’s reporter shield law broadly allows journalists to protect the identity of their confidential sources. But the appellate court ruled that not all writers are entitled to claim the benefits of that law “lest anyone with a webpage or who posts materials on the Internet would qualify.” Now, this whole case is around a message board “post” on a site called Oprano which calls itself the “Wall Street Journal for the online adult entertainment industry”. Oh yea, the plot thickens, doesn’t it? The credibility of all involved is starting to really come to light. Nevertheless, how any court defines a journalist can be important to any online “reporter” or “blogger” because if brought to the courts legal precedence will often help determine which way a case will go. So the NJ court has basically decided that this message board rant that eventually created a charge of defamation (that’s rich considering the industry, huh?) suit is not protected under the state’s Shield Law. These laws are designed to allow reporters etc to protect sources. The ruling was upheld in an appellate court as well. The bottom line is this A trial judge rejected Hale’s argument and an appellate court upheld that ruling this week. The appellate court said that Hale’s posts to the message board were more akin to a letter to the editor than a work of journalism. “Although any attempt at defining ‘news’ would ultimately prove illusory, some delimiting standards must pertain lest anyone with a webpage or who posts materials on the Internet would qualify,” the court stated. The judges then went on to outline specific reasons why Hale didn’t qualify as a journalist: “Defendant has produced no credentials or proof of affiliation with any recognized news entity, nor has she demonstrated adherence to any standard of professional responsibility regulating institutional journalism, such as editing, fact-checking or disclosure of conflicts of interest.” Too Much Media’s lawyer, Joel Kreizman, says that the court correctly decided that Hale wasn’t acting as a journalist when she made the posts. “A journalist would issue a report,” he says. “These posts were on a message board as opposed to any kind of blog.” Well, now the blogging world may want to be concerned if there is a need for credentials and standards to have some protection under the law. Those aren’t exactly commonplace in the world of blogging. If they are please update me. Hale’s lawyers, of course, don’t think this ended the way it should But Hale’s lawyer, Jeffrey Pollock, criticized the decision. He says that New Jersey doesn’t require that journalists have credentials or work for established news outlets to qualify for the shield law. Instead, he says, the only criteria is whether people gathered information for the purpose of publication. “If she doesn’t qualify, who the hell does?” he asks. “How do you decide who’s in and who’s out?” Interesting question really. As a blogger, how covered or how exposed you are in any legal case will be more a subjective matter than objective depending plenty of variables. Where you live, where a case is filed and more. As a result, what do you think are the protections afforded someone who has a blog rather than just posts to a forum? Should there be journalistic “rights” for bloggers? If so, how far should they go? Any thoughts?

Tags: appellate-court, court, editor, industry, internet, legal, media, message, online, people, rights, street
Posted April 26, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

After the NCAA championship Monday, one of the sportscasters noted, “Duke won this game [OH YES THEY DID!]; Butler didn’t lose it.” [Also true—awesome game.] After years of a case dragging through the courts (not unusual, but still), I think we can say something similar about the FCC’s challenge to Comcast on principles of Net Neutrality: the FCC lost this case ; Comcast didn’t win it. That is to say, Comcast’s reasons for blocking BitTorrent downloads weren’t just so awesome that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously declared Comcast the winner—it was Comcast’s claim that the FCC doesn’t currently have the authority to enforce Net Neutrality. In a major blow for Net Neutrality, the Court of Appeals really did say that the FCC, the federal agency that regulates “all non-federal government use of the radio spectrum (including radio and television broadcasting), and all interstate telecommunications (wire, satellite and cable) as well as all international communications that originate or terminate in the United States,” as Wikipedia says. However, “broadband” isn’t currently defined as “telecommunications.” The case originally picked up in 2008, with several volleys: FCC Stepping in on Net Neutrality? Net Neutrality Conference for FCC FCC: We Can Enforce Net Neutrality Now Comcast Says FCC and Internet Access Principles Don’t Apply To Them But since then, it’s been mostly a waiting game. There is, however, still one point of hope for the FCC and Net Neutrality: the court ruled that the FCC “‘has failed to tie its assertion’ of regulatory authority to an actual law enacted by Congress.” So if Congress can enact a law granting the FCC that authority, they can regulate the Internet (However, there have been multiple attempts to do just that, with no success). Alternatively, the FCC could also try to reclassify broadband as “telecommunications,” giving the commission full jurisdiction—but that action would surely be met with legal opposition just like this case. Meanwhile, Comcast reassures consumers that they’re committed to neutral principles. (Except, you know, when the FCC imposes them.) Comcast spokesperson Sena Fitzmaurice told Online Media Daily that the company will “continue to work constructively with this FCC as it determines how best to increase broadband adoption and preserve an open and vibrant Internet.” Personally, I’m torn. Net Neutrality is an important principle to preserve the freedom of the Internet. But on the other hand, courts so rarely limit continually-growing federal powers that I can’t help but cheer when that power does get limited. And the power to “regulate the Internet” does sound a little scary, doesn’t it? What do you think? Is there any hope left for legal Net Neutrality?

Tags: comcast, congress, court, game, internet, legal, media, ncaa, sportscasters, United States
Posted April 7, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media