Category: Internet law

  • How To Get a Free Consultation with Ruth Carter

    Photo by Don McPhee
    Photo by Don McPhee

    I’m excited to share that I’ve teamed up with Gangplank in Chandler to offer free legal mentoring services on the first Monday of the month from 1pm until 4pm. I can see 3 people for 45-minutes each every month at no charge.

    Hello Beautiful by Gangplank HQ from Flickr
    Hello Beautiful by Gangplank HQ from Flickr

    My legal mentoring hours are a great opportunity to informally bat around your ideas and questions about your projects and business. Coming to my mentoring hours does not create an attorney-client relationship between us. We won’t have any ongoing obligations to each other unless we decide to create a formal working relationship.

    Gangplank provides free collaborative workspaces in Arizona, Virginia, and Canada. They provide the physical and social infrastructure for creative people to launch their startups. These are wonderful places for freelancers and new business owners to work. In Arizona, Gangplank has locations on Chandler, Avondale, and Tucson.

    I love working with Gangplank. They have a fantastic group of dynamic people who have an enormous amount of creativity and drive. They have a very informal environment and they do incredible work. It fits brilliantly with my desire to be the approachable lawyer who wears t-shirts.

    Skulls & Stripes by Gangplank HQ from Flickr
    Skulls & Stripes by Gangplank HQ from Flickr

    Gangplank in Chandler is located at 260 South Arizona Avenue. Their events calendar shows their mentors’ availability and also all their other events like their weekly brown bag presentations, hacknights, and workshops. They have a wealth of other mentors too who provide assistance in the areas of business, leadership, marketing, design, finance, and technology.

    Gangplank is in charge of scheduling the mentoring hours so please check their event calendar for my availability. You can book a mentoring appointment with me by emailing them at chandler@gangplankhq.com.

    Please note: my mentoring hours at Gangplank are not for my ongoing clients with whom I’ve created an attorney-client relationship. These appointments are for people who think they might need a lawyer, people who just want some general legal information, law students, anyone else who wants to chat for an hour.

    You can connect with me via Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn, or you can email me.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • Choose Your Strategy to Protect Your Work Before Posting it on the Internet

    My artwork for Dans office by Romers from Flickr
    My artwork for Dans office by Romers from Flickr

    A friend recently asked me about a common situation her clients face. They are artists who, before the internet, could only show their work to a large audience at art festivals. She said these artists hesitate to market their work online because they’re afraid that it could be stolen.

    Could their work be illegally copied if they show it on the internet? Yes. I worked with an artist last year who had their entire catalog illegally copied.

    Should they us the internet to market their work despite this risk? Probably. If you’re an artist you have to weigh the risk of having your work illegally copied against the benefit of reaching a larger audience.

    My unsolicited advice to artists is to decide how you want to respond if your work is stolen before you put your work out there and plan accordingly.

    • If you want to sue the people who illegally copy your work, you have to register your copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office.
    • If you want to license your work, meaning people can pay you for the right to reproduce your work on their sites, you need to have licensing terms and fees. This way people can legally purchase the rights to use your work and you can send a bill to the people who illegally copy your work. This recently happened to a friend of mine.
    •  If all you want to do is force them to remove the image when you detect someone’s stolen your work, you need to understand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or know an attorney who does who can send the proper takedown notice on your behalf.

    When you put your work out there, you should be diligent about watching the internet for potential infringement. Often times people think they can use your work if they provide an attribution and a link to the original. What they’ve really done is made it easy for you to determine who is using your work without your permission.

    My two cents on this issue is you shouldn’t let your fears about copyright infringement prevent you from using the internet to market your work if you’re an artist, but you should have a strategy in place in advance for dealing with it when it occurs.

    For more information on this and related topics, please check out my book The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed, available on Amazon.

    You can connect with me via Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn, or you can email me.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • Register Your Blog’s Copyright Every Three Months

    This Sewer is Copyrighted by cogdogblog from Flickr
    This Sewer is Copyrighted by cogdogblog from Flickr

    DISCLAIMER: Recent conversations with the Copyright Office have led me to change my stance regarding blogs and copyright registration. Please see this post for my updated views.

    My cause for the next year is to encourage independent writers and artists to register the copyrights in their work. If you have a blog, you have to register your content every three months to maximize your options when someone steals your work.

    I know a lot of people wouldn’t notice if someone stole their content, but what if someone did that to you? What if someone did that to you and it pissed you off? You might want all your options to be open for you then.

    The U.S. Copyright Act says you get the most options when someone steals your content if you register your work within three months of publication or one month of learning of the infringement – whichever happens first. For most bloggers that means they have to register their blog content every three months. Here is a simple breakdown of your possible options depending on when you registered your work.

    Possibility #1 – You Never Registered Your Content
    The law says you have to register your copyright to sue for copyright infringement. If you refuse to register your work, that’s your prerogative, but that means you can likely only send a cease-and-desist letter or a DMCA takedown notice if someone steals your content.

    Possibility #2 – You Registered Your Content After Three Months of Publication
    You can sue for copyright infringement, but you can only ask for your “actual damages.” This is the amount of money the thief made from stealing your work and/or the amount of money you didn’t make because he stole your work. In the blogging world, your actual damages could easily be $0.00. Most people don’t sue for actual damages unless the thief made bank off what he stole. You’d also be responsible for paying your attorneys’ fees.

    Possibility #3 – You Registered Your Content Within Three Months of Publication
    You can sue for copyright infringement, and you can ask for “statutory damages.” Statutory damages can be as high as $150,000, regardless of how much money you lost or the thief made from stealing your work. If you register your work within this time frame the court can make the thief pay your attorneys’ fees too. A lot of attorneys ask if and when you registered your work when you come to them with a copyright claim because they suspect you can’t or won’t want to pay the legal fees that go into fighting one of these cases.

    Registering your copyright is preparing for the worst-case scenario. Hopefully you’ll never need to deal with copyright infringement, but you may want to have all your options available to you if it does. You can read about my experience registering my blogs’ copyrights in a post I did just after my first registrations. Registering a literary work only costs $35 per application.

    If you are a writer, blogger, or artist, please consult a copyright attorney about the best ways for you to protect your work. Many people can register multiple works under one application, but there may be instances where it’s worth it to register a work separately.

    You can connect with me via Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or you can email me.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • Don’t Post Stupid Stuff Online

    Gestures by Tuppus from Flickr

    When I was a kid, I had a shirt that said “think” across the chest and “act” across the back. There was tiny print around the bottom hem that had a series of statements that said “think before you ________.” The shirt’s message was, “Think before you act.” If the company made this shirt today, they should modify the design to say, “Think before you post.”

    Think B4 U Post by Mister Norris from Flickr

    It blows my mind how much stupid shit people post on the internet, and most of the time, you can tell they do it because they think it’s funny in the moment and they don’t think it all the way through. Before you post anything on the internet, regardless of what it is and where you’re putting it, ask yourself 2 questions:

    1. What’s the worst thing that could happen?
    2. How many ways could this blow up in my face?

    We all know how fast an internet post can spread like wildfire. Look at this post by a girl who lost her hat that she got from her mother who died of cancer at the Phoenix airport. I’m sure tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people have seen it. I hope she gets it back. This post went viral because her story touched people’s hearts, but other posts go viral because they’re so offensive.

    Always beware of the court of public opinion. You can look like a massive ass on the internet without doing anything illegal. If you do that, be ready for your reputation to be tarnished. That offensive post could easily become the number one result when someone Googles your name, which will hurt your professional and personal lives.

    And if you make an offer in a post that is believable, don’t be shocked if someone accepts it. If you post on Facebook, “I lost my phone in a cab in NYC. I’ll give $10K to whoever returns it.” You better get your checkbook out when you get it back or you might find yourself in court for breach of contract.

    If you post something on the internet and it garners strong negative reactions, there isn’t much you can do if you don’t like it unless they cross the line into the realms of invasion of privacy or defamation. The only thing you can really do at that point is damage control.

    Carter Law Firm’s Postcards

    If you post something online and regret it after the fact, deleting it may not be enough to save you. Once you put something out there, you can’t control how many times it will be downloaded, shared, re-posted, and re-tweeted. It only takes a few seconds to create a post, but you may be living with the consequences forever.

    The take away lesson: Think before your post…really think. Don’t put anything online that you wouldn’t put on the front page of the newspaper.

    You can connect with me via Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or you can email me.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • On Being an Outspoken Blogger

    Call a spade a spade by scarycurlgirl_photos from Flickr
    Call a spade a spade by scarycurlgirl_photos from Flickr

    I had the pleasure of speaking at TechPhx last weekend. My presentation was entitled The Legal Side of Blogging: 10 Questions to Ask Before you hit “Publish.” We had a great discussion about how to be an outspoken blogger without setting yourself up to get sued for defamation or invasion of privacy. Hat tip to Tyler Hurst who joined us via Ustream from Portland.

    I walked away from the discussion with the reminder that big problems can result from little mistakes. Often times saying less is the best course of action. Sometimes it’s best to point out the dots and let your readers connect them. If there’s a news story that’s a hot topic in your community, you may want to write about the topic in general instead of the specifics about the situation. Your readers will know what you’re alluding to without having to explicitly state it.

    When you’re a passionate writer, it’s important to state the facts and your feelings as they are without over-embellishing. Don’t manipulate the facts to get the message you want. Take a step back and review your work. Ask yourself what you can think, what you know, and what you can prove. When something is a rumor or an allegation, state that and cite your source when you can. Always be mindful of the fact that you can be sued for defamation if you repeat someone else’s defamatory statement – even if you didn’t know it was false.

    One of my favorite ways to state my views without having to be so blunt about it is to quote someone who shares my perspective. I could call someone that I dislike or disapprove of an ass on my blog, but I think it’s more fun and effective to listen when others are talking about the issue and quote one of them when I hear them say “He’s a prick.”

    If you want to learn more about your online dos and don’ts, check out my book The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed.
    You can also connect with me via Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or you can email me.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • Is It Illegal to Tweet Lies?

    Last week during Hurricane Sandy, many of us turned to Twitter for up-to-the-minute updates about the storm. An anonymous person using the handle @ComfortablySmug made several tweets.

    • BREAKING: Con Edison has begun shutting down all power in Manhattan
    • BREAKING: Governor Cuomo is trapped in Manhattan. Has been taken to a secure shelter
    • BREAKING: Confirmed flooding on NYSE. The trading floor is flooded under more than 3 feet of water.

    It was later revealed that the information was false, but not before these tweets were retweeted more than 500 times according to reports.

    Buzzfeed’s Jack Stuef investigated the situation and determined that the anonymous tweeter was Shashank Tripathi, a campaign manager for Republican congressional candidate Christopher Wight. Tripathi has since resigned from his position and tweeted an apology for posting inaccurate information. That was his latest tweet from that account.

    The New York District Attorney’s Office was asked to pursue criminal charges against Tripathi for his irresponsible tweeting. It will be interesting to see if he’s charged.

    What Might He Be Charged With?
    In many situations, it’s not illegal to lie unless you’re entering realms like fraud or identity theft. I did some digging in the Arizona criminal code and I could see a prosecutor making an argument that a person who posts inaccurate information during an emergency could be charged with electronic harassment, falsely reporting an emergency or causing public panic, creating a hoax, or possibly something along the lines of disorderly conduct.

    Some of these crimes, like electronic harassment, require a victim and Tripathi didn’t appear to have a target. I wonder if issues like this might make the prosecution’s job harder.

    What About Tripathi’s Right to be Anonymous?
    Yes, the First Amendment protects your right to free speech, including your right to speak anonymously. It does not guarantee your anonymity. If you want to be anonymous, you have the responsibility of not making it easy for others to figure out who you are. Apparently @ComfortablySmug was unmasked because he posted censored pictures of himself and the uncensored version was easily discovered and revealed his identity.

    If he committed a crime, his right to be anonymous also went out the window.

    What do you think should happen to Shashank Tripathi? Should he be charged with a crime for tweeting lies about Hurricane Sandy? Please share your opinion as a comment below.

    If you want to learn more about your online dos and don’ts, check out my book The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed.
    You can also connect with me via Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or you can email me.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • Reflections on the Freedom of Speech

     

    Improv AZ's Fake Protest Part Deux by Sheila Dee
    Improv AZ’s Fake Protest Part Deux by Sheila Dee

    Free Speech Week occurs this month!

    I was out walking my dog yesterday morning when I received a surprising and disappointing email. I responded with a pretty loud, “FUCK!” I think everyone within a half block of me who wasn’t wearing earbuds heard me. As I finished my walk, I started reflecting on the freedom of speech.

    As a flash mobber and an outspoken blogger, I’m grateful we have the freedom of speech in the United States. When I have strong feelings about a topic, I get to express them. People in some other countries aren’t so lucky.

    I’m also a big fan of the idea that you have to accept the consequences of what you do and say. Now, I like the word “fuck” as much as I like words like “superfluous” and “misanthropic.” Speech is a wonderful powerful thing. But not everyone likes what I have to say or the way I say it sometimes, but when I say something, I own it. And I completely accept it when people dislike me because I share my points of view. I may not like it when people disagree with me, but I accept it.

    My mantra is “Don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t put on the front page of the newspaper.” The same concept applies to anything in public. If you say it, own it. If you realize after the fact that you said something you shouldn’t have, or you shared your view based on incomplete data, apologize for it.

    Despite our right to share our feelings and opinions, the freedom of speech isn’t completely free. We accept restrictions on our First Amendment rights based on time, place, and manner all the time. We can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre where there are no flames present. We can’t threaten the life of the President. We accept that you must be 18 years old to purchase or create pornographic images. I won’t wear my shirt that says “Do Epic Shit” across the back to establishments where children are generally present, or at least I put a jacket over it. We accept these limitations as necessary for the betterment of society.

    When we celebrate our right to the freedom of speech, we need to respect others’ right to express themselves too. There are times when I hear people who make my stomach churn and my blood boil and the only thing I can do is walk away, which is not always easy when you live in Arizona. But I respect their right to express their views.

    A few years ago I was on a run and I encountered a group of people protesting in front of a Planned Parenthood. As I approached them I cheered, “Go First Amendment!” When one of them offered me a pamphlet, I declined and said, “Oh no. I support abortion.”  If I want to dance in the streets and express my views in my forum, I have to respect their right to peacefully protest on public property.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • Woman Attacks Camera Man on Camelback

    Cholla Trail Landmark - Camelback Mountain by Dru Bloomfield - At Home in Scottsdale
    Cholla Trail Landmark – Camelback Mountain by Dru Bloomfield – At Home in Scottsdale

    Last week Pete Kosednar was hiking on Camelback Mountain when he saw a woman on the trail who didn’t have her dog on a leash. He turned on his video camera and asked her is she knew that her dog was supposed to be leashed. She didn’t appreciate being filmed and reacted by swearing at him and hitting him. Check out the video for yourself.

    Was Pete Kosednar wrong to film this woman? No! She was in a public place where she had no expectation of privacy. As long as he wasn’t filming her to commercialize her image or filming her in a way that constituted any type of harassment, there’s nothing she could do to stop him from filming her. And now the video is on YouTube where everyone can see her behaving badly.

    I understand that privacy is a hot-button topic for a lot of people. It is for me. However, you have no expectation of privacy for anything you do in view of the public so there’s nothing you can do to stop someone from filming you in most situations. Pete could probably strap a video camera to his head and tape most of his day-to-day activities without risk of penalty.

    There are some places where you can expect to not be filmed like public bathrooms, tanning beds,  locker rooms, and retail businesses that don’t allow you to take pictures or shoot video in the store. This woman was on Cholla Trail on Camelback Mountain. There are no special restrictions on shooting photos on video there.

    It also amuses me when people make a scene about being filmed in public. We have surveillance cameras everywhere – in the stores and shopping centers, on courthouses, monitoring freeway traffic, etc. It’s funny when people accept those cameras as a part of every day life but freak out when someone turns on the camera in their phone when they’re standing on the sidewalk or in a public park.

    The take-away lesson here is if you’re going to behave badly in public, whether you’re breaking the law, violating a social norm, or making an ass of yourself, don’t be surprised when you find out that someone videotaped it and posted it online.

    Feel free to connect with me via Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or you can email me.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.
    Check out my ebook on Amazon – The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed

    Hat tips to Phoenix New Times for running the story and Jeff Moriarty for telling me about it.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • Coming Soon: The Legal Side of Blogging

    Coming Soon by Rebecca Wilson

    I’m so excited to announce that my first ebook, The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed will be released on Amazon next week!

    I’ve been blogging since 2009 and I wanted to write a book by a blogger for bloggers about the legal issues that come with having a blog. This book is a combination of multiple research projects on the legalities of blogging that I’ve done over the last two years. This books combines the findings of those projects, dumps the legalese, and gives  bloggers clear information about issues like copyright, privacy, and defamation.

    My family and friends are participating in a collective book purchasing event (aka bum rushing the charts) to give my book a boost in Amazon’s rankings next Thursday, October 4th between 10am and 11am Pacific Time. If you’re planning on buying the book, you’re welcome to join us.  And if you love the book, please leave me a review on Amazon.

    I’m selling my ebook at $3.99, which is significantly lower than the price many other lawyers put on their books. I wanted my book to be accessible to my audience which is bloggers, not just legal bloggers.

    I never could have pulled off this book by myself so I need to thank the people who helped make this possible.

    Thank you to everyone else who helped me along the way. It’s been an incredible six months finishing this project. I also made a video about my book’s release here.

    Feel free to connect with me via Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or you can email me.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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  • Woman Jailed for Refusing to Deactivate her Facebook Account

    When I Was Just a Baby by Phanatic

    I saw a disturbing article on Mashable yesterday about 18 year-old Paula Asher. Asher lives in Kentucky and according to the article, she published the following post on Facebook: “My dumbass got a DUI and I hit a car LOL.”

    Asher was charged with multiple crimes when she hit a car that contained 4 passengers – thankfully none of them were hurt. The victims contacted a judge after they saw the post. The judge ordered Asher to deactivate her Facebook account. When Asher refused, the judge sentenced her to 2 days in jail for contempt of court. The judge didn’t say under which law she could give Asher such an order.

    I don’t know Kentucky law, but I can’t think of any laws Asher broke with her post. She was talking about herself and didn’t mention anyone by name so I don’t think the Facebook post constitutes defamation or invasion of privacy. Intentional infliction of emotional distress generally requires outrageous behavior that was intended to result in harm. I think Asher’s decision to make such a post was stupid, but not outrageous.

    Did the accident victims have a claim against Asher because of her post? I could see them being offended by the “LOL” which suggests Asher didn’t take her DUI or accident seriously, but I don’t see where someone would think it’s illegal. I can see Asher’s defense attorney being annoyed with her because she basically admitted guilt in her post. If the passengers in the other car were going to go after her for damages, I could see them pursuing extra damages for pain and suffering because of her post. I don’t see where a judge would think they had the authority to make Asher remove the post or delete her account based on this post. But there might be something in Kentucky state law that gives the judge the authority to do what she did.

    I suspect Asher was not represented by counsel when she appeared in court. I would expect her attorney to question the basis for the judge’s authority to give such an order to deactivate Asher’s account and to hold her in contempt for refusing to follow it.

    It would be hard to hear the order the judge gave Asher and not respond with “You’ve got to be joking” or something along those lines. I think the proper response is closer to “Your Honor, I understand that these people are upset by my Facebook post and will delete it if you wish. It was a mistake and I’m sorry. Would you please tell me what law gives judges the ability to force someone to deactivate their entire account because of one misguided post?”

    Stories like this make me question whether judges receive proper training about social media sites and their authority over other people’s accounts. Stories like this are also good reminders about the importance of privacy settings and to be thoughtful when you post because you never know when you’re going to be confronted with your own words.

    If you have questions about social media law, contact a social media attorney (like me) in your community.

    Feel free to connect with me via Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or you can email me.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

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    Ruth Carter

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