Cyberlaw

For Creators of Games, a Faint Line on Cloning

"Cloning the soul of a game — its gameplay mechanics, design, characters and storyline — is now commonplace in digital marketplaces like Apple’s iOS App Store and Google’s Android. And while the app stores have offered an unparalleled opportunity for independent software makers to reach customers and make money with an innovative game, they are learning it is just as easy for another game studio to compete with a very similar game."
See Full Article

YAHOO Sues Facebook For Infringing 10 patents

Reuters reports Yahoo has sued Facebook for infringing 10 patents.

Article at:
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/12/us-yahoo-facebook-lawsuit-idUSBRE82B18M20120312

A copy of the lawsuit, with a list of the ten patents, is available at:
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/85094882/Yahoo-s-Patent-Lawsuit-Against-Facebook

Class 4 - Spam, crime and phishing

Next week we will be looking at spam, crime and phishing.

Please look at the relevant chapters of the textbook (chapter 11 and part of chapter 3) as well as the following materials.

Spam

Australian law - Spam Act 2003 (Cth)
US law - CAN-SPAM Act
EU directive - Directive on privacy and electronic communications (Article 13)
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
Internet industry Spam Code of Practice

How effective are these laws?

Crime
Australian law - Criminal Code 1995 (Cth), Criminal Code 1899 (Qld)
Scale of cybercrime - Symantec report
Australian Federal Police
Lulzsec
Cost - here and here

Is cybercrime underreported? Australian Institute of Criminology

Phishing
Australian government - Scamwatch
Anti Phishing Working Group
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance

What is the best way to respond to phishing - raising awareness, enacting legislation or cutting off scam emails before they arrive?

False Names When Using the Internet

Attorney: Social networks must require real names
http://cnet.co/zvJ6Pf

Google Play

Email from Google:

Today we introduced Google Play, a new digital content destination available on mobile devices and on the web. With Google Play, users can buy and experience books, music, movies and Android apps, available across their devices. Google Play gives our partners and the ecosystem an integrated entertainment hub for Android and Google users. As part of this launch, Google eBooks and Android Market will become part of Google Play, and users will now get their ebooks from Google Play.

In addition, customers who go to the web ebookstore will be redirected to the Google Play store. While this doesn't change the way consumers read Google eBooks, it does provide a more compelling mobile purchase experience.

We are excited about the opportunities ahead to "play" together.

Google Play team

Helpful Resources:
Google Play overview - http://play.google.com/about
Google Play brand assets - http://www.android.com/branding.html
FAQs - http://support.google.com/books/partner/bin/answer.py?answer=2494942

Week 3 - Internet Jurisdiction

The next class is Internet jurisdiction.
Presentation from class is here.
Please read the following:
The relevant chapter in the assigned class text.

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)

Penguin Group v. American Buddha

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

What happens if the Defendant does not show up?

Bell v Steele (No 2) [2012] FCA 62 (7 February 2012) - a case that involves a film made in NY and Australia by Richard Bell from Brisbane, that was uploaded to Vimeo from Australia, and where a person in NY had the film removed from Vimeo.

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

Yahoo Facebook Patent War

Yahoo has demanded licensing fees from Facebook for use of its technology, the companies said on Monday, potentially engulfing social media in the patent battles and lawsuits raging across much of the tech sector.

Yahoo has asserted claims on patents that include the technical mechanisms in the Facebook's ads, privacy controls, news feed and messaging service, according to a source briefed on the matter.

Representatives from the two companies met on Monday and the talks involved 10 to 20 of Yahoo's patents, said the source, who was not aware of what specific dollar demands Yahoo may have made for licenses.

See Yahoo and Managing IP

Week 2: The Law of Google

This class will look at Google's business models, and the legal issued raised.

Have a high level look at the following parts of the Google empire:

Ten Things We Know To Be True
Google Products
Google Books
AdWords and AdWords Help
AdSense
New Privacy Policy (and review material linked from this page)

Reading:

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Trading Post Australia [2011] FCA 1086 (22 September 2011), currently on appeal
Financial Times: Google Privacy Policy Gets Public Airing (2 March 2012)
Click Fraud
Advanced Click Fraud

Additional Reading if you have time:

Official Google Blog
Google's Inside Search
40 Changes for February 2012
Google Watch Blog
Prior Blog Posts Concerning Google
Google's Guide to having your website indexed properly in Google search results

Hosted Domains

IP Addresses

[Student Post]

For those that didn’t know, the world is running out of IP Addresses:

http://technology.inquirer.net/infotech/infotech/view/20110121-315808/World-running-out-of-Internet-addresses

It has been known for some time that the current structure of IP addresses is not sufficient for the number of computers/devices accessing the internet in future. The current structure of IP addresses, known as IPv4, is structured as xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (e.g. 192.168.0.1) which limits this number of unique addresses to 4,294,967,296.

With the limit of Ipv4 addresses expected to be exhausted soon and the number of internet connected devices estimated to reach 22 billion by 2020 (IMS Research) it is clear a new IP standard is required.

Thankfully a group known as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has been developing IPv6 since the early 90’s which provides for 340 undecillon (that’s 340 with 36 zeros) unique addresses. (e.g. 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334). However, proliferation of IPv6 has been slow with Google estimating in 2008 that IPv6 uptake among users was less than 1%. The need for replacement and/or updating of some hardware and software is partly to blame for this slow rate of uptake.

So it seems a significant burden has been placed on the IETF to ensure the smooth running of the internet through the adoption of IPv6. That’s a lot of technical control for how the internet of the future is run. Interestingly the IETF is a volunteer organisation with no formal membership. Their work is funded by employers of its volunteers and sponsors including the US National Security Agency (NSA).

Questions this raises for me:

- If IPv6 is developed through volunteers Is the internet controlled and owned by everyone?

- Although ICANN is no longer US Government controlled it seems the IETF may be to some extent. If all roads lead to the US is the US government in control of the internet?

Another way of thinking about this issue might be “Who has the deepest level of technical control over how the internet is run?” Maybe that’s the IETF.

Kim Dotcom Interview

The first interview with Mr Dotcom after his arrest is here:

Campbell Live

Google Search Results Misleading

"In the Statement of Claim, the applicant alleges that, in the period from at least early April 2011 to 21 June 2011, the first respondent established a process by which searches for the applicant’s website by reference to the words “Pacific Boating” on the internet using the Google search engine were diverted to websites controlled by or associated with the first respondent."

See Pacific Boating Group Pty Ltd v Freedom Boating Club Pty Ltd [2012] FCA 72 (8 February 2012)

Domain Name - Use as a Trademark?

"Since 1995, Sports Warehouse had used the name “Tennis Warehouse” in Australia and did not change its domain name for its online store. Sports Warehouse, for the first time in closing submissions, (while conceding that reputation in the context of s 60 was that of the mark rather than reputation on some other basis), contended that as a significant number of Australian residents visited the Tennis Warehouse website at the domain names “www.tennis-warehouse.com” or “www.tenniswarehouse.com”, by inference they came to know Sports Warehouse by that word, which did not include a TW device. While acknowledging that, once at the website, the customer would encounter the TW device with the TENNIS WAREHOUSE trade mark, counsel for Sports Warehouse submitted that the court could infer, in such circumstances, a “capacity for confusion” at which s 60 was essentially directed.

While it has been held that a domain name can in some circumstances constitute use of a trade mark (see Sports Warehouse v Fry at [146]-[156]), there was no evidence before the court to establish that, as at December 2006, the TENNIS WAREHOUSE mark had acquired a reputation through use of the domain names amongst any consumers or any significant section of the public."

See Fry Consulting Pty Ltd v Sports Warehouse Inc (No 2) [2012] FCA 81 (13 February 2012)