Laws of .com

Volume VII, Issue 2: January 29, 2009

Facebook Status Change Results in Murder

NY Judge Dismisses Amazon.com’s Challenge to Web Sales Tax Statute

GateHouse and New York Times Co. Settle Lawsuit

Encyclopedia Britannica going “Wiki”

U.S. Has Divided Success in WTO Complaint Over IP Enforcement In China

Sony to Pay $1 Million to Settle Privacy Suit

Facebook Status Change Results in Murder

Recently, a Stafford Crown Court in the United Kingdom found Edward Richardson, 41, guilty of stabbing to death his 26 year-old estranged wife, Sarah Richardson. The Crown Prosecution Service stated that “Richardson became enraged when Sarah changed her marital status on Facebook to single and decided to go and see her as she was not responding to his messages.“ Following the attack, Richardson attempted to take his own life but failed. The Court sentenced Mr. Richardson to life in prison, with a minimum 17-year term.

For additional information, visit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/7845946.stm

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NY Judge Dismisses Amazon.com’s Challenge to Web Sales Tax Statute

Amazon.com’s challenge to a New York state tax statute requiring online retailers to collect state sales tax on purchases by New York residents has recently been dismissed by a New York Supreme Court Justice. The claim alleged that the statute violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of both the state and federal constitutions.

The Judge ruled that Amazon.com was unsuccessful in demonstrating the unconstitutionality of the statute, as the statute contained a requirement that online retailers do a substantial amount of business in New York before they are forced to collect and remit the sales tax. Specifically, transactions by online retailers will be subject to state sales tax if companies solicit annual sales in excess of $10,000.00 from New York residents.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.lawupdates.com/industry_news/entry/ny_judge_dismisses_amazoncoms_challenge_to_web_sales_tax_statute/

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GateHouse and New York Times Co. Settle Lawsuit

GateHouse Media Inc. and The New York Times Co., parent company of the Boston Globe, recently disclosed a settlement following a lawsuit filed on December 22, 2008 by GateHouse in U.S. District Court. GateHouse, a website and local newspaper publisher, claimed that the Boston Globe infringed its copyright and trademark rights by posting headlines and leads from its “Wicked Local” community websites on the Boston Globe website, Boston.com. These were posted by the Boston Globe in its “Your Town” website feature, linking directly to “Wicked Local” stories on GateHouse websites. Readers using the links could bypass ads on the GateHouse homepages.

In the settlement, New York Times Co. agreed that GateHouse would set up technical barriers to prevent Boston.com from “scraping” its website content, and Boston.com agreed to comply with those barriers. The Boston Globe and Boston.com also agreed to remove previously posted GateHouse headlines and leads from the website. The agreement did not cover non-GateHouse stories to which Boston.com linked, and the Globe maintained that its use of headlines and short excerpts is fair use. Boston.com would still be able to refer to GateHouse stories, and to manually “deep link” to individual articles. Neither party admitted wrongdoing, and no damages were awarded under the settlement, with each party agreeing to cover its own legal expenses.

The case would have had far-reaching implications for online news providers and aggregation sites that post headlines and short summaries of the news stories to which they link. As matters stand, the question of how much content from one website may be used by another website without infringing intellectual property rights in the U.S. remains unanswered.

For additional information visit:
http://shorl.com/nuherefudivu

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Encyclopedia Britannica going “Wiki”

In an apparent bid to compete with Wikipedia, the venerable publication Encyclopedia Britannica has opened itself to user-generated content. Britannica still plans to vet the material that users post to the site for the purposes of maintaining the publication’s quality. However, Britannica plans to conduct that review and post the new material within 20 minutes of it being submitted. Britannica also intends to make use of the content posted by users by incorporating some of it into print versions of the encyclopedia. This new program is part of an overall strategy which is meant to displace Wikipedia’s high ranking on Google searches.

For addition information, visit:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/watch-out-wikipedia-here-comes-britannica-20/2009/01/22/1232471469973.html

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U.S. Has Divided Success in WTO Complaint Over IP Enforcement In China

In a landmark ruling by a panel of the World Trade Organization delivered on January 26, 2009, China’s intellectual property regime was found to have fallen short on a number of its WTO obligations. In 2007, the U.S. launched a WTO complaint against China out of frustration over what it considered to be lax enforcement of IP rights in that country. The WTO panel hearing the complaint ruled that China’s practice of denying copyright protection for movies, music and books not approved by state censors was a violation of the WTO rules. The panel also ruled that it was impermissible for China to authorize public auctions of counterfeit goods seized by customs officials, even after ordering the removal of brands and trademarks from the goods. However, the U.S. was unable to convince the panel that pirates have no fear of criminal prosecution due to China’s high threshold for prosecuting cases of criminal copyright infringement and counterfeit. Despite this divided success, representatives of the U.S. government and media industries applauded the ruling as affirming the principle that IP enforcement must be effective not only in law but in practice.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601954.html

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Sony BMG to Pay $1 Million to Settle Privacy Suit

Sony BMG Music Entertainment has agreed to pay $1 million to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) that it improperly collected and disclosed personal information on thousands of children under 13 without their parents’ consent.

In addition to the fine, Sony BMG agreed to put a screening process in place, to delete all personal information improperly collected and maintained, and to provide links to the FTC consumer education materials on those websites that fall under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (the “Act”), including those that target or collect personal information on children.

The civil penalty paid by Sony BMG is the largest ever to be paid in a case alleging violation of the Act. However, it does not mean that Sony BMG admitted to any wrongdoing.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20081211/ftc-sony-to-pay-1-million-to-settle-privacy-suit.htm

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