Did Twitter unfairly take away Leonard Barshack's handle and give it to Central Idaho ski resort Sun Valley Co.? After using the Twitter handle @sunvalley since 2010, Barshack received an email from Twitter last year notifying him that a report had been filed declaring he was engaging in "non-parody impersonation" with his Twitter handle. The Associated Press reports Twitter claimed Barshack was violating their policy that mandates an account's profile information "make it clear that the creator of the account is not actually the same person or entity," as the subject of the impersonation. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Social Media Marketing | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Accounts & Profiles | Twitter: Legal | Twitter: Marketing

Facebook has settled its trademark-infringement litigation over the term Timeline. This was first reported by InsideFacebook based on an SEC filing: We are also party to various legal proceedings and claims which arise in the ordinary course of business. Among these legal matters, in two cases, Summit 6 LLC v. Research in Motion Corporation et al., and Timelines, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc. , we have reached agreements to settle the matters. The cost of settlement in each case, which is included in the accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements for the three months ended March 31, 20 [...]

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To borrow a famous quote from Yogi Berra: It's like deja vu all over again. YouTube beat Viacom again today in the long-running copyright battle the two have waged, and Viacom is again saying that it plans to appeal the ruling. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news and has posted the court's decision, too. In today's ruling, Judge Louis Stanton -- who also ruled in YouTube's favor back in 2010 -- wrote that "the burden of showing that YouTube knew or was aware of the specific infringements of the works in the suit cannot be shifted to YouTube to disprove." That's a fundamental concept of [...]

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Recall that there was a small photo-centric site out of Chicago run by former ShopLocal executives. That site called/calls itself Timelines (plural). It obtained federal trademark registration for its name. Then, Facebook came along and used that term for its, well, Timeline. Timelines has a number of other photo-oriented sites and apps such as Photogram. Timelines the company offered to sell itself or the trademark to Facebook but the latter declined. The smaller company felt that it was only a matter of time before it would simply go out of business because its name and brand were now [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark

There were several reports from late last week indicating that Google is negotiating with major labels in anticipation of the launch of Spotify-like music streaming service. As part of these negotiations, according to the LA Times, "Google is proposing a premium subscription service" on YouTube that would encompass music videos and perhaps audio-only songs. The suggested launch window is fall 2013. A well-executed streaming capability would potentially threaten smaller services such as Spotify or MOG. Apple is also rumored to be preparing a streaming Internet radio competitor to Pand [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: Partnerships | Google: YouTube | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Top News

Oracle has filed an appeal in its unsuccessful copyright and patent case against Google involving the Java programming language (specifically Java APIs). Oracle acquired Java when it bought Sun Microsystems several years ago. At trial, Oracle was basically shut out on all its claims. It appears that Oracle is only appealing the copyright portion of the case. The jury originally did find copyright infringement by Google, but also found that Google's selective use of Java in the Android OS constituted "fair use." Fair use is a defense against infringement. The judge in the case, William Al [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Legal: Patents

Too bad Twitter didn't originally register "Twitter.org" as well. It would have saved the company from the headache of trying to gain control of the domain, which is now being used to conduct scam surveys of people who unwittingly arrive thinking they're at Twitter.com. The Twitter.org site is set up to intentionally create confusion and make it appear that the actual Twitter is conducting a survey and giving away prizes. The look and feel of the landing page replicates Twitter's earlier design and branding. Fusible.com first reported this story. Twitter has filed a complaint with the Wo [...]

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Which ad networks are -- deliberately or inadvertently -- contributing to piracy of movies, TV shows and music by running ads on the sites that enable the illegal distribution of this copyrighted material? Answering that question was the aim of a USC Annenberg Innovation Lab study released today that found that Google, Yahoo and Quantcast are among the top ten networks placing ads on well-known pirate sites. The researchers used Google's transparency report related to copyright violation sites to identify pirate sites, then crawled them to determine what ad networks were serving ads on tho [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Google: Display Advertising | Legal: Copyright & Trademark

For the third consecutive year, websites selling counterfeit products online have been seized on Cyber Monday, the day generally thought to be the busiest online shopping day of the year. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today that 132 domain names have been seized this year in two campaigns known as "Project Cyber Monday 3" and "Project Transatlantic." The latter project refers to the fact that law enforcement agencies in several European countries also took part. The US-based effort nabbed 101 domains, while the European project claimed another 31. The ICE s [...]

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Twitter is changing how it handles legal requests against individual tweets that violate copyright. Rather than remove the tweets altogether, Twitter will now hide the tweets and show a message alerting readers that the original tweet is being withheld. GigaOm first reported the news on Sunday, following a tweet from Jeremy Kessel, Twitter's manager of legal policy. Kessel linked to the new policy in Twitter's help center, which reads as follows: In an effort to be as transparent as possible regarding the removal or restriction of access to user-posted content, we clearly mark withhe [...]

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The Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced today that it had settled long-standing litigation with Google over its book scanning project. Google was sued in late 2005 by the AAP (and individual publishers) and the Authors Guild on behalf of writers. The litigation sought more than $100 million in damages for copyright violations. The settlement of the AAP claims doesn't impact the Authors Guild class action suit, which lives on. The specific book-publisher plaintiffs in the action were McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Penguin, Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Simon & Schuster. Specifi [...]

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As you may recall the judge in the Oracle v. Google patent and copyright trial (William Alsup) asked both sides to reveal authors, bloggers, journalists and others with whom they had financial relationships. Oracle disclosed that it had retained Florian Mueller, who writes the widely read patent blog FOSS Patents. Google said that it had no such relationships. The judge wasn't satisfied with that response and ordered Google to try again and produce a list of paid commentators by August 24. At the end of last week, Google complied by filing a supplemental disclosure listing several nam [...]

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In the Oracle vs. Google litigation, which is winding down, Judge William Alsup ordered the companies to disclose authors, bloggers and journalists with whom they had financial relationships. Oracle previously disclosed that it had retained Florian Mueller, who writes the blog FOSS Patents. Google disclosed that it had paid no one. On August 17, 2012 Google filed a statement that read in part: Neither Google nor its counsel has paid an author, journalist, commentator or blogger to report or comment on any issues in this case. And neither Google nor its counsel has been involved in any [...]

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Beginning this week, Google will be penalizing certain sites that are frequently accused of violating copyright laws. In a blog post Friday morning, Google explained the change this way: Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily.... Rights groups such as the Recording Industry Association of Americ [...]

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With a U.S. court telling Pinwheel that it couldn't use that name anymore, the location-based startup has chosen a new name: Findery. It also has a new lantern icon (shown at right) on its renamed Twitter feed and its new Facebook page, and a new blog where founder Caterina Fake's first post explains that nothing but the name has changed. A New York court recently agreed with Pinweel, a mobile photo-sharing site, that Pinwheel (with the "h") was infringing on its trademark. Yesterday, Pinwheel temporarily redirected its site to 2bkco.com, the name of its parent company. Today, Finde [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Findery | Legal: Copyright & Trademark

Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake's new location-based startup Pinwheel, which is still in private beta, is probably going to be forced to change its name. TechCrunch reported yesterday that a court in New York granted the similarly sounding Pinweel, a mobile photo-sharing site, a preliminary injunction. The central claim was trademark infringement. The main idea here is that the lesser-known but pre-existing Pinweel will be irreparably damaged by the potential consumer confusion over the two similar-sounding companies. The case is still in process but granting a preliminary injunction is a q [...]

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Be In, a company that created the video sharing service CamUp, is accusing Google of stealing trade secrets and violating its copyrights when it added a "Watch with Friends" video sharing feature to Google+. CamUp is a New York-based online service/community that allows users to share multimedia content via connected webcams. GigaOm has posted a copy of the lawsuit, which claims Be In has suffered losses in excess of $75,000 and "continues to suffer irreparable harm." The suit asks the court to shut down the Hangouts feature on Google+, to make Google remove the Hangouts button on YouTube [...]

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What could be worse than a web site apparently using your content without permission? How about getting a legal threat from that same site demanding a $20,000 payment? Faced with this type of crazy situation, Matthew Inman, aka The Oatmeal, responded with the type of humor and out-of-the-box thinking he's known for. He decided to raise money for a charity instead. After only a few days, Inman's raised nearly $150,000 and generated plenty of chuckles across the web with his approach. The Oatmeal Vs. FunnyJunk, Round 1 Inman makes funny web comics, quizzes and products that wholeheartedly e [...]

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Last week Google notched a major victory for Street View in Europe. The Swiss have affirmed its basic right to exist in the country, which is widely regarded to have among the toughest privacy laws on The Continent. The Swiss privacy regulator had demanded that Google guarantee it would be able to blur faces, car license plates and other images with complete accuracy, 100 percent of the time. That requirement was seen as a threat to Google's ability to continue to operate Street View in Switzerland -- because it could only blur faces (etc.) with 99 percent accuracy. In what was described [...]

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Google's YouTube won a legal victory today when a French court dismissed a copyright violation lawsuit filed against by TF1, a French television company. According to a New York Times report, TF1's lawsuit asked the court to rule that YouTube was required to pre-filter all content before it was published on the site. But the Tribunal de Grande Instance decided that YouTube's existing system for dealing with copyrighted material is adequate. (That system, called Content ID, prompts YouTube to identify copyrighted material and notify the owner of the possible infringement. The content own [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: Legal | Google: YouTube | Legal: Copyright & Trademark