July 2nd, 2008
Care to spend your holiday weekend policing directory listings?
I’m not a fan in general of sites that create a listing or profile for you, hoping you’ll eventually claim and/or correct it. This tactic, neither user-centric nor user-driven, is insidious for at least three reasons:
- inaccuracies proliferate,
- privacy is frequently jeopardized, and
- users are required to invest considerable time and supply yet more personal data in an effort to remedy 1 and 2.
David Lazarus gives examples of these sorts of problems in his Los Angeles Times piece today, Social networking site divulges child’s personal information. He tells of a mom who looked up her Reunion.com listing just to see what it might say, and learned it included her toddler son’s name and their family’s home town: things she would rather not have readily associated with one another. This occurred even though Reunion.com says it creates its listings only from “publicly available” information, including that purchased from a data broker. When the Times came calling, Reunion.com removed the reference and now says “measures have been put in place to make it easier for people to have information deleted from the site,” though I don’t see much here that bears this out.
Lazarus tapped privacy guru Ray Everett-Church for his thoughts on the matter. There goes the weekend:
[I]t’s up to parents to monitor online directories such as Reunion.com and make sure their kids’ names aren’t present.
Everett-Church also suggests parents do everything they can to keep children’s information out of corporate databases — presumably by using false names when subscribing to magazines, using online services, etc.
There are market opportunities around these pain points. The value of brokered data plummets once enough people game and/or end-run that system, whereas the value of systems and relationships that meet expectations and demands around accuracy, privacy, and time efficiency goes through the roof.
Elsewhere in the L.A. Times, Numedeon Inc.’s Jen Sun thinks there’s an upside to ruses run by some Whyville users who con others out of online goods and funds in exchange for nonexistent rewards: “It’s a learning experience for the victim not to be so gullible, not to be motivated by greed, because the scammers use greed against you.” I hope we don’t have to wait for all the nine year-olds to grow up in order to figure this stuff out.
(Image by LabGP & SigOther’s, CC Attribution-2.0)
June 16th, 2008
Overly restrictive A.P. quoting guidelines risk winning battles at the war’s expense
Saul Hansell reports today that the Associated Press "will, for the first time, attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright."
The problem with “clear standards” is that as Tim Wu (quoted in the article) correctly points out, the legal standard is unclear, and subject to interpretation on a case by case basis. There are instances when reproducing the entire work (or large portions thereof — “Fisking” we used to call it, seems like eons ago) with sufficient commentary is fair use. The A.P.’s vague statement that it wants to police what appears to be reproduction for reproduction’s sake as opposed to commentary, thus is a fair representation of what it’s entitled to do by law; anything more specific might not hold up.
Given this, it’ll be interesting to see what the A.P. cobbles together with the Media Bloggers Association, which of course does not act for and can’t bind the whole blogosphere and Web. If, as the statements to Hansell suggest, it’s as restrictive as purporting to make brief direct quotations against A.P. policy, the A.P. will either have to backtrack or try to get judicial buy-in on a policy that in all likelihood would be deemed overbroad.
(Image by SideLong, CC Attribution-2.0)
Related: Mike Arrington, Here’s Our New Policy On A.P. stories: They’re Banned, and all stories and posts linked from there; Techmeme re same.
May 24th, 2008
Section 230 to Twitter and others: Delete away
Community and content management don’t void a site’s immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Participation in an unlawful act does.
I was thus taken aback by the legal analysis included in Wired’s/Betsy Schiffman’s post about Ariel Waldman and Twitter (Twitterer takes on Twitter Harassment Policy):
John Dozier Jr., a managing partner at Dozier Internet Law, says Twitter may have risked its immunity under the Communications Decency Act the moment it “edited” or altered content on the site. (An “edit” could include any sort of alteration, such as promotional placement or displacement on the site.)
“If they’ve edited content based on their subjective perspective, they put their immunity at risk and virtually their entire online business, because then they’d be liable to defmation [sic] claims or anything else that a publisher would,” Dozier says.
What’s at stake in the Twitter-Waldman discussion, as I understand it, is not editing or alteration but removal: something squarely protected by Section 230. (To be clear, editing and alteration don’t per se void the immunity, either.) As Professor Eric Goldman (a Section 230 scholar and frequent analyst) put it in a recent, unrelated post:
47 USC 230. Many people operate under the outdated myth that a site must choose to be either a publisher or a passive conduit. Fortunately, the law facilitates heterogeneous approaches to UGC. Per 230, a [site owner] isn’t liable for third party content with limited exceptions. Ownership doesn’t matter; editing doesn’t matter, prescreening/policing doesn’t matter. …
Evan Williams and co. at Twitter haven’t been invoking Section 230 as a basis for their decision not to remove certain complaint-generating submissions or their author; let’s not start doing it for them.
(Image by carrotcreative, CC Attribution-2.0)
May 21st, 2008
Stanford Information Law Symposium
Though it could scarcely be more cumbersomely named — the Transatlantic Information Law Symposium — this upcoming (and free) program at Stanford Law School looks excellent, featuring such big thinkers as Mark Lemley and Stefan Bechtold, and such big topics as privacy, free speech, the future of Internet regulation, and one that looks particularly intriguing from the standpoint of social media and attention: property vs. contract to govern online behavior. I’d like to go, though the timing’s not great for me; if you’re going, blog the wealth.
(Image by Maveric2003, CC Attribution-2.0)
May 14th, 2008
A short, pointed list of ‘wonderful policies’
In putting together a list of what I consider to be relatively clueful site policies, terms, and guidelines, I just stumbled on BoingBoing’s List of Wonderful Policies. And it is.
April 23rd, 2008
Upcoming panel on exploiting the social graph
At a conference I attended last month on social media law (I have some interesting notes I’ll post soon), I was struck by how lawyers for social media giants such as Facebook, MySpace, Google, find speedy ways to accommodate powerful copyright holders on infringement issues. When it comes to concerns over exploitation of user data, however, their solution is to draft the most draconian terms of service imaginable (knowing no one pays real attention), consider themselves legally covered when user complaints crop up, and occasionally ratchet down the terms or otherwise execute a subtle course change when things begin to get ugly: as with Beacon, or Billy Bragg, or, presumably soon, Google Reader.
We’re going to further explore this topic in a panel I’ll moderate at OnHollywood on June 10th. What do you think about different approaches to managing user data? If none of the poll answers fit or you want to expand, please comment.
Loading …March 31st, 2008
Sparks fly over copyright at Tech Policy Summit
The group of copyright scholars and advocates gathered Wednesday at the Tech Policy Summit in Hollywood demonstrated that while copyright must function in a converged world, opinions on how it should function are as divergent as ever. The panel (pictured from left to right) consisted of Patrick Ross (Executive Director, Copyright Alliance), Fred von Lohmann (Senior Staff Attorney, EFF), Matt Zinn (VP and general counsel, TiVo), and moderator Doug Lichtman of UCLA Law School.
I. Copyright Policy
The primary bone of contention was the extent to which copyright law does and should leave room for permissionless innovation. Matt Zinn and Fred von Lohmann discussed the benefits of such a system:
Zinn: Fortunately, the Constitution got it right. Copyrights are not absolute rights. TiVo did not have to go to the rightsholders for permission [to build a product that allows flexible use of lawfully acquired copyrighted content]. If they’d had to, there’d be no DVR. With no DVR, there’d be no VOD.
Von Lohmann: In recent years, the law has begun to appreciate the value of organically derived genius, the wisdom of the crowds. The copyright system is doing a surprisingly good joyb of creating rights that leave room for the kind of diverse marketplace [Matt] was just talking about. iTunes, TiVo, iPods, Betamax: all devices that depend or depended on copyrighted works for a large portion of their value, and that’s a good thing. Copyright law in its current form seems to trust markets quite a bit. This is not the death of copyright as we know it. In the room between the overreaching desire of rightsholders for control and what the law provides, innovation blooms.
Patrick Ross, while conceding von Lohmann’s point that "there’s no moral, ethical, or legal right to a business model," sought to reframe the issue, saying it’s not about business models, it’s about copyright:
Asking and getting permission is a key part of the system. . . . Where you get into a problematic situation is where the rights are being so abused and no legal authority is controlling it.
Picking up on Ross’ defense of a permission-based system, Doug Lichtman challenged Matt Zinn on his assertion that TiVo could not have gotten permission had it asked first. He posited that TiVo would have been a value proposition for the television networks, and they would have been willing to partner with TiVo and give back a share of the enhanced value they would realize by meeting the audience demand for such a service. Zinn disagreed:
In Hollywood, it’s not just about the money. It’s about all the money.
Von Lohmann concurred:
Disruptive innovation does not get blessed in incumbent industries. When the music labels tried it with MusicNet, PressPlay, and all the other companies that are now smoking holes in the industry, it didn’t work.
He went on to point out that one reason incumbent industries shun innovation is their reluctance to cannibalize their other businesses: here, sales of videocasettes, DVDs, etc.
At about this point in the discussion, Jay Williams of the MPAA stepped up from the audience to suggest Matt Zinn was being philosophically inconsistent about intellectual property, since TiVo recently won a patent battle with Echostar/Dish Network. "What are the value of those patents? Aren’t they barriers to innovation?" Read the rest of this entry »
February 18th, 2008
Lawrence Lessig, congresscritter nominee
TWiL regular John Palfrey announced a great idea last week while we were recording the forthcoming episode: a Facebook group drafting Professor Lessig for a recently vacated Congressional seat. Says John, "It’s high time we had our first true Free Culture candidate for public office." The Facebook group is about to hit 2,000 members, and there’s an official Web site as well (get your badges here). Seems appropriate in an election season so unusually filled with promise for needed change.
For his part, Professor Lessig isn’t ruling anything out, telling Ars Technica, "At this point, I’m not really able to say anything. I’ve been kind of stunned by the push of many, and am away with my family this weekend to think things through." More from Ars Technica, TechCrunch, and Slashdot.
[Update, 2/20/08 6:51 a.m.] TWiL #12 went up yesterday.
[Update, 2/20/08 6:55 a.m.] Via Jonathan Zittrain, a new site from Professor Lessig, lessig08.org: "I have decided I want to give as much energy as I can to the Change Congress movement. I will decide in the next week or so whether it makes sense to advance that movement by running for Congress."
January 30th, 2008
Docstoc for law school (a.k.a. today’s young whippersnappers don’t know how good they have it!)
My goodness. Check out the impressive array of law school outlines and other law school and bar exam resources being amassed at Docstoc. Aside from being incredibly useful, my favorite thing about this service is its built in Creative Commons licensing. A perfect place to share form legal (and other) documents — as Marc Canter discussed wishing to do on a recent episode of The Gang.
Bonus link: Are Cease-and-Desist Letters Subject to Copyright?
P.S. You know you’re becoming an elder-blogger when:
- you’re just as apt to think MSM refers to methylsulfonylmethane as mainstream media, and
- you’re just as apt to think Idoru is one of your dozens of daily nutritional supplements as a William Gibson novel.
P.P.S. Don’t get me started on the elder hottie thing; dragonlike, I might just aim a hot flash in your direction.
(Image of Docstoc’s CEO and Pepperdine law grad Jason Lawrence Nazar by Brian Solis, CC Attribution-2.0)
January 26th, 2008
Follow-up: Build-A-Bear says it will take privacy suggestions to heart
There were lots of reactions to my last post about Build-A-Bear luring kids and parents into divulging personal information they might otherwise, in other contexts, guard more closely. While some responses channeled Scott McNealy, most seemed to get that my beef was not with the fact of the data collection, or the uses set forth in Build-A-Bear’s privacy policy, but with doing it in what amounts to a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing manner. Here’s a sampling of the subsequent discussion:
- Cory Doctorow called the practice "private information seduction."
- The Consumerist agreed it "seem[ed] sort of…sinister."
- Skippy dot net reacted similarly to his in-store experience at Build-A-Bear.
- Andrew at Changing Way quipped that "the Bear can be more seductive than the Beacon."
- Curmudgeon-in-Training pointed out that "kids, and parents, are getting numb to this disclosure of very personal info for the most mundane of reasons."
- Izzy Neis (who blogs about "Online Communities, Entertainment, Kid Empowerment, and Media Safety") worried that "people forget about the kind of information they share about their kids."
- And Security Hitman observed that "corporations are setting an early expectation with young children that giving out personally information is okay. "
The good news is that shortly after posting my piece I heard from Dave Finnegan, Build-A-Bear’s "Chief InBearmation Officer." Kitschy executive designations aside, you’ve got to be impressed by a company that responds so quickly, directly, and receptively to criticism; I am, anyway. Dave had no problem with my posting our email exchange in its entirety, and you’ll find it after the jump. The upshot is I gave him several suggestions as to how I thought the situation could be improved, and he told me they "will definitely take [my] suggestions to heart," and "will review this information with [their] privacy committee." So, the company gets big points in my book for listening and responding to the conversation, and will earn bigger points still if the next time a birthday party brings me Build-A-Bear’s way, I join my son at the in-store kiosks and see my suggestions have been implemented. I’ll certainly let you know if that happens.
(Images by sarae, CC Attribution-No Derivs 2.0)
Denise Howell is an appellate, intellectual property and technology lawyer who enjoys broad industry recognition for her expertise on the intersection of emerging technologies and law. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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