The National Arbitration Forum (NAF) has given Google ownership of more than 750 domains that used its trademark name, often in conjunction with other well-known trademarks and/or celebrity names. In one of its legal filings, Google called it "one of the most aggressive campaigns of domain name infringement that [Google] has encountered." The domains were registered by Chris Gillespie between February 29 and March 10, 2012. They include domains like googlechevron.com, googlecoors.com, googledonaldtrump.com and googlegaycruises.com. For a time, according to Google's complaint, Gillesp [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Domaining | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Top News

According to published reports, a federal jury earlier today delivered a mixed result in Oracle v. Google. The jury found that Google had in fact infringed on Oracle's Java copyright (by virtue of its Sun Microsystems acquisition) in using some Java code in Android and related APIs. However it deadlocked on the question of whether that infringement was protected by the doctrine of "fair use." Fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. There were more findings and procedural nuances, more fully explained in the Mercury News article on the case. Google has now moved f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal | Google: Mobile | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Legal: General | Legal: Patents | Top News

Even as it was selling more and more handsets Google's Android platform apparently lost considerable money throughout 2010, according to remarks made by the Judge in the Oracle-Google intellectual property trial. According to Reuters, Judge William Alsup commented on otherwise sealed financial documents submitted by Google to the court. "That adds up to a big loss for the whole year," the Judge reflected. This, despite generating nearly $100 million in revenue in Q1 2010. The reason this came up is because Android profit and loss records were submitted to the court as part of a damages h [...]

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

In a court ruling that both sides are calling a partial victory, a German court has ruled that YouTube must improve its copyright protection in Germany, but stopped short of telling the site to go back and remove all copyrighted material currently on the site. Hamburg's state court has told YouTube Germany that it must prevent users from uploading some music videos whose copyrights belong to the German royalties agency, GEMA. The court wants Google to use software to monitor and stop users from uploading alternate versions (i.e., live recordings) of songs that have already been flagged for [...]

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

Thanks to John Heywood, a writer and courtier to Henry VIII, we have classic epigrams like “Haste makes waste,” “a penny for your thought,” “beggars can’t be choosers,” and “the more the merrier.”  My favorite is “you can’t have your cake and eat it, too,” which Heywood actually recorded as “Wolde ye both eate your cake and have your cake.” When it comes to Twitter, I most value each of my many individual interactions  (let’s call that eating my cake) -- but at the same time, I’d like to continue enjoying the benefit of that content outside of the Twittersp [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Twitter | Twitter Marketing Column

Flickr appears to be the first of what you'd call a "major" website to employ a meta tag that keeps copyright-protected images from being pinned on Pinterest. As VentureBeat first reported, Flickr is using the "nopin" meta tag that Pinterest just introduced earlier this week. When Pinterest sees the tag on a web page, none of the photos can be pinned directly from the page. Flickr is adding the "nopin" tag to photo pages that are marked as private, marked as non-safe, and -- this is the most common implementation -- on pages of Flickr users whose privacy settings don't allow photos to be [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Pinterest | Pinterest: Legal | Social Media Marketing | Top News | Yahoo: Flickr

As the noise continues to grow surrounding Pinterest and its potential legal headaches, the image-based social network has taken a small step toward placating website owners concerned with potential copyright violations. As LL Social pointed out yesterday, Pinterest is supporting a "nopin" meta tag that will prevent users from pinning images directly from the site where the code is installed. The meta tag can be found at the bottom of Pinterest's Help page, under a heading that says "What if I don't want images from my site to be pinned?" It's a simple piece of code: meta name="pinterest [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Pinterest | Pinterest: Legal | Top News

Pinterest has stopped using Skimlinks to monetize some of the "pins" that its users were publishing on the site and, in other news, the company also says that copyright issues haven't been a "significent issue" to date. Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann has been making the rounds a bit this week ("finally," some would say) and discussing some of the issues that have come up in light of the site's stunning recent growth. Silbermann contacted Josh Davis of LL Social, the site that helped spread the news about Pinterest adding affiliate links (via Skimlinks) to some of the content that users po [...]

Related Topics: Affiliate Marketing | Channel: Content Marketing | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Pinterest | Pinterest: Business Issues | Pinterest: Legal | Social Media Marketing | Top News

A new wrinkle was just added to the ever expanding Apple-Samsung IP litigation drama. The European Commission has opened a formal investigation to determine whether the Korean firm breached EU antitrust rules. Did Samsung break its promise to Europe? At issue is whether "Samsung Electronics has abusively, and in contravention of a commitment it gave to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in European mobile device markets . . ." In 1998 Samsung made a commitment to European regulators to licens [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal | Legal: Antitrust | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Mobile Marketing

Until now, Twitter's not had the ability to censor certain tweets or accounts, to prevent them from being seen -- if legally required -- by users in particular countries. That's now changed, though Twitter stresses that it hasn't yet used this new ability and that should it have to, anything withheld will be disclosed. Twitter has shared the news on its blog, saying: As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are simi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal: Censorship | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Legal

According to a report in CNET, based on public filings with the US Senate Office of Public Records, Google spending on federal lobbying exceeded that of rival Microsoft in 2011. Google reportedly spent $9.7 million to Microsoft's $7.3 million in 2011. Some decry the increase in Google lobbying as hypocrisy because lobbying is inherently "evil" and Google pledged to "do no evil." In the scheme of things Google's $9.7 is still relatively modest. The top lobbying spender in 2011 was the truly evil US Chamber of Commerce at $46 million. Google isn't in the top 20. Here's the top 20 lobbying [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Legal: Antitrust | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Legal: Privacy

Congress and the Hollywood/media lobby was taken aback by this week's massive anti-SOPA protest. In light of that, and reconsideration by several of the bill's sponsors and high profile supporters in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has canceled a vote on SOPA-companion measure PROTECT I.P. Act or "PIPA." Here's the text of Reid's statement, released about an hour ago: “In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act. “There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeit [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark

By all accounts, yesterday was a big and important day for the tech and online marketing industries. Hundreds of websites protested the SOPA & PIPA bills that are currently moving through the U.S. Congress by either going completely dark for the day or -- as we did here on Marketing Land and our sister site, Search Engine Land -- blackening a portion of our site and adding anti-SOPA/PIPA messaging to their home pages. Did it work? Well, the two bills are not dead, but they're certainly damaged. By Wednesday night, the Washington Post says that at least four co-sponsors dropped support o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features & Analysis | Google: Legal | Internet Marketing Industry | Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Statistics: Online Behavior | Top News

Major web sites have gone dark to protest the anti-piracy bills in the US Congress known as SOPA and PIPA. Internet companies fear they potentially could "break" the internet by giving out powers to broadly to ban or censor web sites. Status Of The Bills SOPA -- the Stop Online Piracy Act -- is the bill in the House of Representatives. It received much attention and debate in December. It's planned to be reworked in February, and it seems unlikely to come up for a vote in the way that it was. PIPA -- the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Pr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features & Analysis | Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Top News

Over the past month, SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261,) has been the hottest, most controversial news topics.  The proposed legislation required the take-down of infringed content from ISPs, search engines and webmasters.  The good news is, SOPA has been shelved ... for now. The outpouring of anti-SOPA support has been overwhelming, and may have influenced the White House's decision to not support the legislation in it's current form.  An outpouring of support on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and from webmasters made the anti-SOPA stance a popular one.  While the original SO [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Social Media Marketing | Top News

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives will conduct a hearing later this month to discuss the issues that the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (and similar legislation) is trying to address. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, Chairman of the House's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, announced the hearing today. On January 18th, the full committee will "…examine the potential impact of Domain Name Service (DNS) and search engine blocking on American cyber-security, jobs and the Internet community. In light of policy proposals affecting the way taxpayers acces [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark

SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act H.R. 3261) is proposed legislation before the U.S. House of Representatives that would require search engines, advertisers, ISPs and other key internet players to police content and take active moves to take down allegedly infringing content. It's a very broad bill, with many problematic aspects for online marketers. If SOPA (and/or its counterpart in the Senate, the Protect IP Act - PIPA) are signed into law, the implications for marketers are significant. Here's a Q&A covering the most important aspects of the bill that all marketers both need to know [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Features & Analysis | Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Search Marketing | Top News

SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act H.R. 3261) is proposed legislation before the U.S. House of Representatives that would require search engines, advertisers, ISPs and other key internet players to police content and take active moves to take down allegedly infringing content. Want to know more about why SOPA is a big deal for marketers? Check out our What All Marketers Need To Know About SOPA – The Stop Online Piracy Act. Meanwhile, here's a list of links for more information, categorized by topic. Legislation (Summary and Full Text) H.R. 3261: Stop Online Privacy Act S. 9 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google | Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark