Poker Play

"IN ANOTHER era, Daniel Tzvetkoff would have been whacked - shot or garroted, buried in a shallow grave or sent to sleep with the fishes. The world's two biggest online gambling companies, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, which want the $US100 million they believe the former Gold Coast high-flyer took from them, don't work that way.

They send their lawyers. Or they just wait. But Tzvetkoff, incredibly, has used his position from inside a US jail to, first, free himself, and then go on the offensive against the very people who are chasing him.

The Queensland internet entrepreneur, 28, was mysteriously bailed from a US federal prison last August. He has rolled to save his neck.

US federal prosecutors are using Tzvetkoff's unique inside knowledge of how big online gambling companies shift money out of the US in exchange for a sweet deal."

See Courier Mail front page story

"ASSOCIATES of former internet high-flyer Daniel Tzvetkoff have been charged after a flurry of arrests in the US over illegal online gaming following his release last year from a New York prison.

US judges have sealed the files on Mr Tzvetkoff's criminal case, after he was secretly released from prison -- without a bail hearing -- on charges he was involved in a $500 million money-laundering scheme for illegal online poker sites.

Secrecy now surrounds the former Gold Coast-based entrepreneur's movements, with prosecutors refusing to disclose if they are going ahead with the charges that carry a 24-year jail term."

The Australian

The owners of three of the largest Internet poker companies operating in the United States were accused Friday of tricking regulators and banks into processing billions of dollars of illegal Internet gambling proceeds.

Eleven people including the owners of Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and PokerStars were charged with violating anti-Internet gambling laws, according to charges filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Prosecutors also filed a civil money laundering complaint seeking to recover at least $3 billion from the companies, which are all based overseas, court documents said.

In addition, according to the government statement, restraining orders were issued against more than 75 bank accounts used by the poker companies and their payment processors. And the Internet domain names of the companies were also seized.

NY Times

Week 8: Internet Patents

Reading for the Internet patent class:

Social Media Alarm Bells

See The Age

In an age in which one negative online review can destroy brands, social media has become one of the top risks keeping C-level executives up at night, a survey of 446 major Australian corporations and public sector organisations has found.

Hilton Hacked

From an email from Hilton Hotels:

Dear Customer:

We were notified by our database marketing vendor, Epsilon, that we are among a group of companies affected by a data breach. How will this affect you? The company was advised by Epsilon that the files accessed did not include any customer financial information, and Epsilon has stressed that the only information accessed was names and e-mail addresses. The most likely impact, if any, would be receipt of unwanted e-mails. We are not aware at this time of any unsolicited e-mails (spam) that are related, but as a precaution, we want to remind you of a couple of tips that should always be followed:

• Do not open e-mails from senders you do not know

• Do not share personal information via e-mail

List of Cases

The EFF has an interesting list of U.S. Internet law cases. See

https://www.eff.org/cases/

Week 7: Liability of ISPs and Infrastructure Providers

This class deals with liability of intermediaries. For example, is an ISP liable for the conduct of its users? Is a web hosting company liable for the content of others that it hosts? Is TripAdvisor liable for reviews of hotels posted by users? Is Google liable for the content that appears on this blog?

Should such intermediaries be liable for the actions of others?

The main reading for the class is the iiNet case:

Also, read the following:

Bunt case
Cooper case
ACCC v Allergy Pathways and ACCC Press Release
Stratton Oakmont and follow-up
Communications Decency Act section 230
Google's liability for AdWords
YouTube and note and Summary Judgment
TripAdvisor: Terms; Restaurant Gives Up; tips; and Findlaw note

Google Buys Nortel's patent portfolio

Bankrupt Nortel Networks Corp. has accepted Google Inc.'s $900 million stalking horse bid to buy an intellectual property lode of some 6,000 patents and patent applications that include wireless, data networking and semiconductor technology, the Internet giant said Monday.

See BBC and Google Blog

Week 6: Content Regulation

This class will focus on laws and current issues relating to the regulation of content on the Internet.

Should freedom of speech on the Internet prevail over protection of the public interest? Does the public need to be protected? What is the difference between censorship and regulation?

What are the relevant public interests? Who decides?

Should there by government regulation, or reliance on technology (such as NetNanny), or parental responsibility (e.g., see Google's Family Safety Centre)?

Reading:

Canadian hate speech decision
Racial Discrimination Act section 18C
Westboro Baptist Church: article and protest and decision
Is Cyberspace Burning?

Jurisdiction: Penguin v. American Buddha

See this decision from the highest court in NY: Penguin Group v. American Buddha

The case concerns whether NY courts have jurisdiction in a copyright case, involving a website controlled and located out of NY State. The Court decided that the situs of the injury was the location of the copyright holder -- i.e., in New York.

Spam Crime and Phishing (Week 5)

For this lecture we will be discussing:

Spam
Australian legislation - Spam Act 2003
How many prosecutions have been brought in Australia? Is the Spam Act an effective deterrent?
ACMA
IIA Spam Code
US (CAN SPAM Act) and recent court action by Microsoft
What other jurisdictions have enacted Spam legislation?
Spam Laws

Crime
AFP - e-crime
Lack of reporting?
Hacking examples

Phishing
Phishing attacks - Westpac ATO Canada CRA
Top 10 countries for phishing
Anti-phishing website

Keywords in Europe

Extract from legal newsletter, IBLS:

The latest advocate general opinion on keywords advertising could, if followed by the European court, have a significant impact on Google’s advertising model. The advocate general’s opinion in Interflora v M&S advises that a trademark owner can take action against an advertiser who attempts to benefit from the attractive force of the proprietor’s mark. This is the first time that such a high court has opined on a dispute between a trademark owner and advertiser, rather than examining Google’s role – but it could deter advertisers from bidding on others’ trademarks.

The advocate general states that trademark use as a keyword can be forbidden under Article 5(2) of the European Trademarks Directive if “the advertiser attempts thereby to benefit from its power of attraction, its reputation or its prestige, and to exploit the marketing effort expended by the proprietor of that mark in order to create and maintain the image of that mark”.

Yesterday evening a crowd gathered at University College London for a seminar on the future of advertising function of the trademark. Although the speakers were in the dark about the advocate general’s opinion in Interflora, they nevertheless provided insight that takes on a new light today. For instance, this latest opinion continues the court’s flirtation with the advertising function, which could disappoint Annette Kur, one of last night’s speakers and co-author of the recent study into the European trademark system. “Including the advertising function into reasoning under Article 5(2) TMD is unnecessary and dangerous,” she said, advising brand owners to forget about trying to use the advertising function to gain protection beyond the established function of the trademark. “Stick to what you know,” she said.

Trademark owners will have to wait some time for the court’s judgment in Interflora.

See also FT

TripAdvisor and Crime

"To our travel community: This past weekend we discovered that an unauthorized third party had stolen part of TripAdvisor's member email list. We've confirmed the source of the vulnerability and shut it down. We're taking this incident very seriously and are actively pursuing the matter with law enforcement. How will this affect you? In many cases, it won't. Only a portion of all member email addresses were taken, and all member passwords remain secure. You may receive some unsolicited emails (spam) as a result of this incident. The reason we are going directly to you with this news is that we think it's the right thing to do. As a TripAdvisor member, I would want to know. Unfortunately, this sort of data theft is becoming more common across many industries, and we take it extremely seriously. I'd also like to reassure you that TripAdvisor does not collect members' credit card or financial information, and we never sell or rent our member list. We will continue to take all appropriate measures to keep your personal information secure at TripAdvisor. I sincerely apologize for this incident and appreciate your membership in our travel community. Steve Kaufer
Co-founder and CEO More information"

Law Dog

Yale's dog: Click here.

Content Regulation - Government Launches Classification Review

See ABC article

"The Minister responsible for classification, Brendan O'Connor, said technology is fast moving and the review will examine how the classification can cater for further advances into the future.

"A lot has changed in recent years. Australians now access content through the Internet and mobile phones and that poses challenges for the existing classification scheme," Mr O'Connor said. "We're also seeing the convergence of different technology platforms and the worldwide accessibility of some content, which also creates new concerns," he said.

"Australians need to be confident that our classification system will help them make informed choices about what they choose to read, see, hear and play," Mr O'Connor said. "That's particularly important for parents who rely on the National Classification Scheme to make sensible choices for their children," he said."

Google Copyright Settlement Rejected

Google infringes copyright on a grand scale.

Yesterday, Judge Denny Chin of the District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected the proposed settlement in The Authors Guild v. Google Inc. in relation to Google digitizing books.  The judge stated:  "The question presented is whether the [Amended Settlement Agreement (the “ASA”)] is fair, adequate, and reasonable.  I conclude that it is not.

While the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the ASA would simply go too far.  It would permit this class action – which was brought against [Google] to challenge its scanning of books and display of “snippets” for on-line searching – to implement a forward-looking business arrangement that would grant Google significant rights to exploit entire books without permission of the copyright owners.  Indeed, the ASA would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engagin in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case."

U.S. Patent Case

The recent U.S. case of CLS Bank v. Alice addresses patent eligibility requirements  for computer-implemented business and financial methods.

Alice is an Australian company that owns four United States patents; it asserts that CLS infringes these four patents. CLS is an “Edge Act Corporation,” organized under Section 25A of the Federal Reserve Act, as amended, 12 U.S.C. § 611, and authorized by statute to engage in international banking activities.

Summary provided by the U.S. law firm that represented the successful party: On March 9, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed all claims of patent infringement brought under four patents directed to computer-implemented methods, systems, and products for exchanging a financial obligation, because each of the patent claims was directed to an “abstract idea” and was invalid because it was directed to non-patentable subject matter. The decision is significant because, among other things, it addressed numerous questions left unanswered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in Bilski v. Kappos, 130 S. Ct. 3218 (2010). This Client Alert reviews the decision and the significance the decision may have on the scope of the abstract idea exception that had not been addressed either by the Federal Circuit or by the Supreme Court in their respective Bilski decisions.

Seizure of Domain Names

A post from a student:

"Earlier this year an Act was passed by the US government (Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act) which specifically allows the seizure of any website which has been "'primarily designed' to offer goods and services in violation of the Copyright Act and / or the Lanham Act".

In February the US Department of Homeland Security used this new act to seize 83 internet domains. The seizure involved re directing the DNS of that domain to a banner as shown here. One domain in particular was channelsurfing.net, this web site hosted links to other sites which hosted copyrighted material. The site operator Brian McCarthy is now facing court for Criminal Infringement of a Copyright.

As a part of this DNS seizure the DNS hosting provider FreeDNS was disabled. This caused the approximately 84,000 customers of FreeDNS to be redirected to the DHS 'banner', some of whom were not related to the original seizure at all (eg RapGodFathers.com)."

Compare the Australian case of

Cooper v Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd [2006] FCAFC 187

Marketing Issues with Social Media

ADVERTISING: When the Marketing Reach of Social Media Backfires  What happens when behavior on social media is deemed antisocial?  Full story here.

Social Networks Seminar

There is an expensive seminar on 1 April regarding social networks.

"As the flames of revolution in the Middle East continue to be fanned by Facebook groups and a chorus of tweets, our panel of international experts tackles the massive potential and limitations of social technologies.

Together they will take a look at the role social media is playing in bringing about true democracy, challenging conventional economies and helping the scientific community accelerate research."

Details here if interested.

The Evolving Mission of Google

THE MEDIA EQUATION: The Evolving Mission of Google  Google will tell you insistently that it is not a media company — it organizes and manages content, but does not produce it. Watch closely.  See NY Times article

Privacy - Week 4

Australia
Office of Australian Information Commissioner - look at the Privacy Act and Privacy Principles.
What legislative changes have been proposed for Australian privacy laws?
You should also be aware of relevant case law in this area - is there a right to privacy at common law?
Privacy Foundation

International rights
Art 17 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Privacy Policies
Do you understand/agree to all of these terms?
Amazon
Disney

Cookies
Cookie Central

Google
Google Maps
Legal responses - Australia; USA; Czech Republic; Germany. What are some other responses from around the world, particularly in relation to the Street View data collection issue?

Facebook
No longer a social norm?

Solutions
TrustE

A New Privacy Law? and See U.S. Senate hearing and Europe

Internet business models

Article on price fixing issues for ebooks - see here.

Keyword Decision in California

See Network Automation v. Advanced Systems Concepts

"Here we consider whether the use of another’s trademark as a search engine keyword to trigger one’s own product advertisement violates the Lanham Act. ...

Given the nature of the alleged infringement here, the most relevant factors to the analysis of the likelihood of con- fusion are: (1) the strength of the mark; (2) the evidence of actual confusion; (3) the type of goods and degree of care likely to be exercised by the purchaser; and (4) the labeling and appearance of the advertisements and the surrounding context on the screen displaying the results page.

The district court did not weigh the Sleekcraft factors flexibly to match the specific facts of this case. It relied on the Internet “troika,” which is highly illuminating in the context of domain names, but which fails to discern whether there is a likelihood of confusion in a keywords case. Because the linchpin of trademark infringement is consumer confusion, the district court abused its discretion in issuing the injunction. "

Class 3 - Internet Jurisdiction

The next class is Internet jurisdiction. In addition to the notes in the Study Guide, please read the following:

Wikipedia introduction and personal jurisdiction

Sliding Scale Test:

Zippo case

Effects Test:

Calder v. Jones (US Supreme Court)

Application of Effects Test:

Ubid v. GoDaddy

Weather Underground case (and complete court file for this case if interested)

Article

Trademark and Calder Test

Australian approach:

Dow Jones v. Gutnick (High Court of Australia)

[Defamation - including Internet cases - background information if interested]

Comment: Determining Internet Jurisdiction

Queensland Police information

Could two courts come to an inconsistent result in the same case:

See The Secret litigation

Background: The Australian

Australian Trial Judge Decision
Full Court of Federal Court Decision

Note regarding US decision on jurisdiction

See also prior posts if interested, for example.

Australian Domain Names

Australia’s Internet community celebrated a significant milestone last night with the registration of the two millionth .au domain name.

UDRP - Bad Faith Registration

In a UDRP proceeding against a cybersquatter, the Complainant has to prove three elements. The third element is bad faith registration and use. Some decisions have interpreted this requirement as being bad faith registration only. However, the traditional view that both bad faith registration and bad faith use is required, was supported, by majority, in the recent SimplyBusiness.com decision.

Keywords in Canada

Last month (February 2011) in Private Career Training Institutions Agency v Vancouver Career College (Burnaby) Inc, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia refused to grant an injunction preventing the use of names of competitors in Google and Yahoo keywords as part of internet advertising.

iCyte

When you are doing electronic research on the Internet, the iCyte tool is useful. See www.icyte.com. You can use it to save and annotate your research. It is free for students.

Week 2 - Google and Social Media

On Monday we will be looking at the business models of companies who operate primarily on the Internet. We will look at the rules you must comply with when using their sites (in addition to all other laws that apply), and the benefits/criticisms of their business models. In particular, we will focus on Google and Facebook, but will also try to cover Amazon, eBay and Twitter. You should be familar with the products/services offered by these companies, and their terms and conditions.

What are the risks of doing business with these organisations?

For some background you can look at:

Don't Be Evil

Google Product Offerings

Google Watch

Google Book Project

AdWords - Australia

Facebook and Privacy

Click fraud

Endorsements - US position

Study guides

For those in the class asking about study guides, paper copies have been mailed to you, and you should receive them within the next few days. In the meantime, you can access an electronic copy under the "Learning Resources" tab of the Blackboard site.

Article on Domain Name Law

See this brief article that I wrote as an introduction to domain name law.

7s Domain Name Decision

Is it cybersquatting to point a domain name to a website that has no relationship with the semantic meaning of the domain name?

See 7(s) v. Luo decision

Discussion: Domain Name Wire

Patenting Business Methods

Review of patentable subject matter in Australia

The Australian Advisory Council on Intellectual Property has released its review of patentable subject matter. The Advisory Council is an independent body appointed by the government, and advises the Federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research on intellectual property matters.

Click here to view the report

Click here to view the Advisory Council's Media Release

Chasing Pirates

See Inside Microsoft's War Room

Copyright in databases

In December 2010, the Full Federal Court decided that there was no copyright in White Pages and Yellow Pages telephone directories.

Chief Justice Keane was convinced by the respondents argument that the White and Yellow Pages “were compiled, not by the individuals engaged to facilitate the process, but by a computerised process of storing, selecting, ordering and arranging the data to produce the directories in the form in which they were published.” [7-8]

See Australian Copyright Council note

For the full decision, see http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2010/149.html

iiNet copyright case - Full Federal Court Appeal Decision

iiNet succeeded in its appeal, but on narrower grounds. The case concerns whether an ISP is liable for copyright infringement of its users.

See case, and SMH article, and ZDnet

Google Modifies Its Algorithm

Google has changed its algorithm that returns search results, to remove content farm websites. See NYT.

Fined For Conduct of Facebook Fans

In his judgment Justice Finkelstein held that: "while it cannot be said that Allergy Pathway was responsible for the initial publication of testimonials (the original publisher was the third party who posted the testimonials on Allergy Pathway's Twitter and Facebook pages) it is appropriate to conclude that Allergy Pathway accepted responsibility for the publications when it knew of them and decided not to remove them. Hence it became the publisher of the testimonials."

In responding to the judgment, ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said: "Many corporations now use Facebook "Fan" pages and Twitter accounts to promote their businesses. This outcome confirms that any business that decides to leave public testimonials or other comments on their Facebook and Twitter pages will be held responsible if they are false, misleading or deceptive."

See ACCC Press Release

ACCC v. Allergy Pathway [2011] FCA 74

Use of Domain Names is Passing Off - UK Decision

In Lifestyle Management Ltd v Frater, a former agent of Lifestyle Management Ltd has been found by the UK High Court, on an application for an interim injunction, to have committed acts of passing off by pointing certain domain names to websites that closely resembled his former principal's website.

Keywords abuse - damages of $292,000

A law firm specialising in disability claims was awarded $292,000 by a California court, because of a competitor’s use of its mark as a Google AdWord.

See Binder v. Disability Group

Article: A Game Changer?

Domain Name Decision

Recent domain name decision regarding bad faith.

Prime Pictures v. DigiMedia

The Law Firm of the Future

An interesting article about legal services.

Also, an article about Twitter and law firms.

Internet Law Resource Centre

BNA has launched its Internet Law Resource Centre. It costs a heap of money, but there is a 15 day free trial.

Manipulating Google Search Results

The NY Times has a very good story about how JC Penney manipulated Google search engine results. Google did not catch this until the NYT pointed this out. Once Google decided to act, Google manually changed the results. For many searches, JC Penny went from 1st place to about 75th place.

See Search Optimisation and Its Dirty Little Secrets.

Google and Charity

Google Finds It Hard to Reinvent Philanthropy. See NY Times story.

LWN117 Offered in Semester 1, 2011

Cyberlaw and Policy LWN117 will be offered in first semester 2011 at QUT. See course details.

Is Law School A Losing Game?

See this story from the U.S. To what extent is the situation the same in Australia?

Online Surveys

See SMH

Google and Privacy

On Wednesday, the FTC closed its investigation of Google for its collection of data from unsecured wireless networks that may have violated privacy rules.  Google’s changes to its procedures and policies address the FTC’s concerns according to a letter from the FTC to Google:  http://www.ftc.gov/os/closings/101027googleletter.pdf

No Copyright In This Headline

The Federal Court of Australia decided today that newspaper headlines are not protected by copyright. How will this impact Google News?

Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Reed International Books Australia Pty Ltd [2010] FCA 984 (7 September 2010)

See Mallesons Alert

The Australian

BusinessWeek

Fake Consumer Reviews

On the consumer protection front, the FTC settled charges that a public relations agency engaged in deceptive advertising â€œby having employees pose as ordinary consumers posting game reviews at the online iTunes store, and not disclosing that the reviews came from paid employees working on behalf of the developers. This activity was in violation of the FTC's Revised Endorsement Guidelines which require disclosure. The PR firm, Reverb Communications, is required to take down the fraudulent postings and bars them from making similar postings in the future without appropriate disclosures.

Press release: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/08/reverb.shtm

Links to Complaint and Consent Order: http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0923199/index.shtm

Information on the FTC's Revised Endorsement Guidelines (16 CFR Part 255): http://ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm

Google and Privacy

A video cartoon featuring Google's chief giving away ice-cream to snoop on children aired on a giant screen in Times Square today as a privacy group continued to hound the internet giant.

Consumer Watchdog took its gripes with Google to the centre of Manhattan, where it paid to have a "Don't be evil?" animated clip shown on a "Jumbotron" screen above the masses coursing through Times Square.

Full story

Changes to Laws In Australia involving licensing software to consumers

Have a look at the Mallesons blog.

Who does this affect?

The new laws raise issues for all software licences with Australian end-customers where either:

the software is "of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use or consumption"; or
the amount paid or payable for the software is $A40,000 or less.

Those end-customers are taken to be "consumers" by the ACL, even if they are multinational corporations or government entities well-equipped to negotiate to protect their interests.

Software Licensing

Is the software installed on your computer something you own -- or did you simply buy a "license" to use it? That's the issue at the heart of Vernor v. Autodesk Inc., a case argued Monday before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that represents a broad challenge to the software industry's fundamental business model.

See law.com

U.S. Patent Office Guidelines for patentable subject matter

See article at this U.S. law firm website.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) published Interim Guidance on 27 July 2010, for evaluating method claims for subject-matter eligibility under § 101 of the Patent Act. This guidance follows the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bilski v. Kappos.

Manifesto on internet policy and regulation

The IIA recently launched its "manifesto on internet policy and regulation, with principles and recommendations to guide decision making".

A PDF copy of the guide is available at

http://iia.net.au/images/resources/pdf/manifesto-2010.pdf

"We'll be requesting political parties to respond to its recommendations over the coming weeks," IIA chief executive, Peter Coroneos, said.

"It asks the question, under what circumstances can the Internet in Australia be advanced or hobbled by politicians today."

The report argues that the speed of technological change

outstrips the ability of legislation and legislators to keep up.

"Should or can they, regulate the internet to tackle social

policy challenges arising in the wake of rapid technological

change without damaging our capacity to innovate and compete?

If laws are passed, can they be enforced?

Is technology to blame or are we really dealing with age old

human problems that neither laws nor technology can regulate?

These are questions implicit in this document," Coroneos said.

The document offers a reality check to the internet policy debate by urging a return to first principles such as where Australia stands against our western counterparts. It argues we tend to over-regulated in content matters for often symbolic political reasons.

"We lack a local research base to support proposals notably in areas of cyber crime and cyber safety," he said.

Business Method Patents - U.S. Supreme Court takes wide view

See today's decision in the Bilski case.

NYT article

YouTube and DMCA

YouTube wins copyright case, and found to be protected by DMCA.

See Mallesons and NYT

Last Class

The last class is Monday night, 31 May.

The class will go for about an hour, then we may go for a drink/pizza etc.

In this class, I can answer any questions that you may have.

We will also discuss legal issues concerning eBay and (if time) Facebook.

Please read:

eBay - reimbursement re bankruptcy of seller

Have a look at:

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet/20100527-ebay-australia-sets-up-special-fund-for-victims-of-collapses-online-travel-company.html

in light of

this note.

Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo

Facebook, MySpace Messages Are Protected: Judge

A district judge has reversed a magistrate judge's ruling that fashion house Christian Audigier Inc. can subpoena the Facebook Inc. and MySpace Inc. communications of an artist who sued the designer for copyright infringement, finding that messages on the social networking sites are protected information.

Yahoo, Facebook Back Google In YouTube IP Case

Facebook Inc., eBay Inc., IAC/InterActiveCorp and Yahoo Inc. have urged a federal judge to rule against Viacom International Inc. in its copyright lawsuit against Google Inc. over video-sharing website YouTube Inc., arguing that a victory for Viacom in the case would hurt online commerce.

Communications Law to be Reviewed

Two top Democratic legislators said Monday that they would begin a process to modernize telecommunications laws that were last overhauled in 1996 but barely mention the Internet.

NY Times

Break Up Google?

Google is the “arbiter of every single thing on the Web, and it favors its properties over everyone else’s,” said Mr. Reback, sitting in a Washington cafe with the couple. “What it wants to do is control Internet traffic. Anything that undermines its ability to do that is threatening.”

See NY Times for full story.

ISP Liaibility

The main reading for the class on Monday, 24 May is the iiNet case:

Also: The Bunt case

High level note

Privacy - Proposed New Law in U.S.A.

U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher (VA-09), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, and Cliff Stearns, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, released a discussion draft of legislation to assure the privacy of information about individuals both on the Internet and offline.

Details

References

This website has some useful links and references:

http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/article-index/rights-and-laws-of-the-internet/

Google Says It Collected Private Data by Mistake

"Google said on Friday that for more than three years it had inadvertently collected snippets of private information that people send over unencrypted wireless networks. The admission, made in an official blog post by Alan Eustace, Google’s engineering chief, comes a month after regulators in Europe started asking the search giant pointed questions about Street View, the layer of real-world photographs accessible from Google Maps. Regulators wanted to know what data Google collected as its camera-laden cars methodically trolled through neighborhoods, and what Google did with that data."

Full story in NYTimes

Copyright class

This lecture will give a brief overview of copyright law generally. For some background, see:

Berne Convention
Australian Copyright Council
Copyright Act

There have been a number of interesting Australian cases dealing with copyright infringement, see for example:

Kazaa
MP3s4free
Stevens v Sony

The iiNet case will be discussed in detail in the Liability of ISPs lecture.

We will also discuss how other countries treat piracy:

US - Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and the case of Napster
UK - Ditigal Economy Bill, and the recent case of Newzbin

Patents Class

On Monday, 10 May 2010, we will be looking at patents.

Some reading for this class:

1. History

2. State Street Bank decision

Decision

3. Bilski

4. Australia

Real Time
Grant v Commissioner of Patents [2005] FCA 1100
Comment

5. Protests

Google v. Groggle

See this article, including an audio interview.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/are-google-and-groggle-really-similar-339302819.htm

Google Keywords

"There is no stopping Google selling trademark terms as keywords. That is the message from the US courts this week. A judge from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has dismissed Rosetta Stone's case against the search giant, effectively killing off once and for all the conventional method of attacking the AdWords programme.

Rescuecom had already dropped its case against Google (in order to fight a suit on exactly the same issue but where it is the defendant). But the fact that a court has now dismissed this type of case is very surprising, as it shows that they cannot even get to court anymore. The message is that mark owners will be wasting their time suing Google for trademark infringement. The Court of Justice of the European Union recently said the same thing, although it left the door open for mark owners to sue those third-party advertisers that purchase competitors' trademark terms as keywords.

While the Best Buy v Rescuecom case will be tried from this particular angle, it appears that Google is off the hook. Users of the AdWords programme may sue each other, but the view of one US court at least is that there's no point suing Google. If trademark counsel want to stop the sale of their trademark terms to their competitors, they need to switch tactics. Fast."

Source: World Trademark Review

iCyte

In a previous post, I mentioned iCyte as a research tool. Here is an article in the Wall Street Journal about iCyte.

Domain name disputes and cyberquatting

Domain name disputes and cyberquatting

What are the common elements of domain name dispute resolution process?

For a good overview of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Process (UDRP), and the factors relevant to each element, see the WIPO website.

The Australian Dispute Resolution Process for domain names (managed by auDA), can be found here.

What are the differences between these two policies.

We will be discussing some of the following cases, which would be good to review before class:

brisbane.com

q1resort.com

"sucks" cases - red bull and bakersdelightlies

personal names

Who should win in this case?

We will also discuss the proposal for new top level domains.

Online Contracting

This week we will cover the two related issues of online contracting and legal issues which arise when creating a website.

Online contracting

How do you determine when an electronic communication is sent/received? What are the possibilities?

Electronic Transactions Act - Queensland / Commonwealth
Vienna Convention on the Sale of Goods (incorporated into

Australia

law)

Guidelines for operating websites

Australian Treasury Guidelines for e-commerce

Terms of use

What are the common clauses / differences between these Terms of Use?

Clickwrap / Shrinkwrap agreements

Sample

What is the difference between a clickwrap and a shrinkwrap license?

What can you do to try and make a clickwrap agreement enforceable?

How will unfair terms legislation affect these agreements?

List of cases

Enforcing Click Wrap Agreements

Tiffany v. eBay

EBay Inc did not engage in trademark infringement and dilution by selling counterfeit Tiffany & Co goods on its website, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday, but it ordered further review of the jeweler's claim of false advertising.

Tiffany and other luxury brands have long argued that counterfeit merchandise bearing their names is sold on eBay. The Web commerce company, which does not itself put the goods up for sale, says it has spent millions of dollars to track down counterfeiters and remove such listings.

See Reuters and BusinessWeek

Trial Decision and Second Circuit Appeal Decision

Who can regulate the Internet?

The DC Circuit court recently vacated the FCC's order imposing sanctions on Comcast Corp. for its network management practices.  It held that the Commission failed to tie its assertion of ancillary regulatory authority over Comcast's Internet service to any "statutorily mandated responsibility."

"In this case we must decide whether the Federal Communications Commission has authority to regulate an Internet service provider’s network management practices. ..."

Here is the opinion: http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/201004/08-1291-1238302.pdf

How I Got Sued by Facebook

http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/

How I got sued by Facebook

...Their contention was robots.txt had no legal force and they could sue anyone for accessing their site even if they scrupulously obeyed the instructions it contained.

http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/regulation/38101-pete-warden-vs-facebook-a-case-of-too-much-data-access

Pete Warden vs. Facebook: a case of too much data access

... Pete Warden had a really great idea: to map the friendship interactions of Facebook users to aid with geospatial analysis of user relationships. Facebook's lawyers had a different view.

Adsense HTML

Google Finds It Hard to Reinvent Philanthropy. See NY Times story.