Tag: Carter Law Firm

  • Arizona’s Latest Anti-LGBT Attack: HB 2481

    rainbow flag : banner, harvey milk plaza, castro, san francisco (2012) by torbakhopper from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    rainbow flag : banner, harvey milk plaza, castro, san francisco (2012) by torbakhopper from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    There was much rejoicing last week when Governor Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062. This bill would have allowed anyone to refuse to do business with a patron based on their religious beliefs. The ultra conservatives said they were trying to protect their freedom of religion but most of us saw it for the bigoted attack against the LGBT community that it was. The outcry from the business community was fast and severe which is why I think this bill was shut down.

    But now the Arizona legislature is at it again! Now they’re trying to pass a law (HB 2481) that would allow clergy members and justices of the peace to refuse to perform marriages if it violates their “sincerely held” religious beliefs. This is obviously a bill that is aimed at allowing officiants to legally refuse to perform same-sex marriages.

    This bill is fucked up on so many levels. Let’s start with the fact that we have the separation of church and state. To be legally married, you need a valid marriage license and a marriage ceremony performed by a legal officiant. If you get married in the church without a license, that’s outside the realm of state-recognized marriages and has nothing to do with this bill.

    A member of the clergy can already refuse to marry a couple in their church, synagogue, temple, etc. if the relationship violates the religion. And there are plenty of religions and clergy members that say homosexuality is wrong. Besides, why would you want to get married by someone who doesn’t approve of your relationship? Logically speaking, this situation will rarely happen and if it does, the clergy already have a valid reason to decline. We don’t need a law about this.

    Remember same-sex marriage is not legal in Arizona so no state official can perform a legal same-sex ceremony anyway.  This law is nothing but a pre-emptive strike against the expectation that same-sex marriage will be legal in Arizona some day and there may be judges and justices of the peace who are asked to perform legal (non-religious) marriage ceremonies that they disagree with. I’m sure they think there are straight couples who go to City Hall to get married where they disagree with what the couple is doing, but they suck it up and do their job.

    When a judge or justice of the peace is asked to officiate these marriages, they are a state actor, not a clergy member. If they are uncomfortable with this part of their job, they should suck it up or quit.

    And in case you didn’t know, Arizona allows people who are ordained online to perform legal marriages so you can have the friend of your choosing perform your ceremony.

    Please contact your representative and tell them to vote No on HB 2481. We’ve already told our legislature once that we don’t want them to legalize discrimination. Let’s hope they get the message this time and stop trying to pass discriminatory legislation. And remember the names of the elected officials who are voting in favor of these bigoted laws so you know who not to vote for when they’re up for re-election.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    , , , , , , ,

  • Be Leery of Free Image Sites: You May Inadvertently Commit Copyright Infringement

    Palm Sunset by Lawrence Rayner from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    Palm Sunset by Lawrence Rayner from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    I cringe every time I hear people says they use Google Images to find pictures for their websites because I know most of them are using anything they find in the search results without adjusting the settings to only show images that give them permission to use them. And I love it when people, especially entrepreneurs, use Creative Commons, seek out other sources for free images, or purchase a license to use images from iStock. Unfortunately, there are times when business owners think they are doing everything right, and they don’t realize they’re not until they’re threatened with legal action.

    I have heard about a few situations over the years when someone has stolen images from a photographer and made their work available for free without the artist’s permission. Sometimes the person who steals the original image cuts off the photographer’s watermark or signature before posting them online. These photo thieves may post these images on their own site as free images or wallpaper. You might download this work and use it on your site, thinking that you are acting within the limits of the law.

    When the photographer realizes that their work has been stolen, they’ll probably be angry – and they might send letters than demand payment or threaten legal action to every site where their work has appeared without their permission. And rightfully so – as the copyright holder, they have exclusive right to control where their work is copied and distributed. The fact that you didn’t know that you were doing anything wrong will not absolve you. If you’ve used an image where the watermark or other copyright notice was removed, they could accuse you of committing copyright infringement (punishable by up to $150K in statutory damages per violation) and removing the copyright management information to facilitate the infringement (punishable by up to an additional $25K per violation).

    So what do you do if you receive one of these demand letters? Contact a copyright lawyer immediately. You want to verify that the claim is legitimate and strategically plan your response. If the claim is legit, the artist likely wants you to pay their licensing fee and/or stop using their image. It’s probably best to let your lawyer respond on your behalf but if you choose to respond to the letter yourself, it’s a good idea to have your lawyer at least review your response before you send it to make sure that it’s thoughtful and reasonable.

    What should you do to avoid this type of problem in the first place? Be leery of free wallpaper sites. I have more faith in images I find through Creative Commons – though it is possible that someone could steal another’s image and make it available with a Creative Commons license. You can always run the image you want to run the image through the Google Image search engine to see where else it is being used online. That may help you determine if the image might be stolen. If there ever is an image that you want to use on your site and you’re unsure if you have permission to use it, explicitly ask the artist for their permission.

    If you want to learn more about copyright issues on the internet, please check out my book The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed. It has several chapters dedicated to copyright. You can connected with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    , , , ,
    , , , , , , , , , ,

  • New Trial in Crystal Cox Defamation Case – What Does It Mean for Bloggers?

    First Amendment to the US Constitution by elPadawan from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    First Amendment to the US Constitution by elPadawan from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that Crystal Cox will get a new trial for the defamation lawsuit that was filed against her. Cox calls herself an “investigative blogger” and she wrote a blog post where she accused Oregon bankruptcy attorney Kevin Padrick and his company, Obsidian Finance Group LLC of committing “fraud, corruption, money-laundering and other illegal activities.” Padrick sued Cox for defamation and an Oregon court awarded him $2.5 million in damages.

    In general, defamation requires a false statement about a person communicated to a third party that hurts that person’s reputation. Based on this definition, it’s easy to see how a blogger could be accused of defamation if someone suspects the blogger is lying about them in a post. The court applies different standards for different situations involving situations which will affect whether the author has committed defamation and what damages can be awarded.

    A court may award compensatory damages to make up for the person’s damaged reputation and punitive damages to punish the person who committed the defamation.

    Here are the three standards that can apply in a defamation case.

    • Defamation of a public person: The alleged victim must prove that the author knew or should have known they were lying when they made the statement in question – only compensatory damages available.
    • Defamation of a private person regarding a manner of public concern: Punitive damages are available in addition to compensatory damages if the alleged victim can prove that the author was negligent in making the statement.
    • Defamation of a private person regarding a matter that is not of public concern: Compensatory and punitive damages are available if the alleged victim can show that the statement was false and damaged their reputation.

    It appears the lower court applied the standard for defamation of a private person regarding a matter that is not of public concern and the court of appeals ruled that they should have used the standard for defamation of a private person regarding a manner of public concern because the public has an interest regarding whether an attorney is corrupt and committing fraud. So the parties will have to settle the case between themselves or have a new trial and use the correct standard. But note, there is no dispute about whether the statement in question was defamatory, only what standard the court is supposed to use to decide the case.

    Some people are calling this ruling a huge victory for bloggers because it states that the same defamation standards for journalists apply to blogging – and I’m going to respectfully disagree.  The landmark defamation cases may have started with journalists, but we don’t have different defamation laws for journalists and everyone else. (If this were a Shield Law case, it would be different.) There have been other defamation cases against non-journalists where the court applied the same standards. The fact that this might be the first time a court has said that bloggers can write about matters of public concern is an indicator of how few defamation cases go to trial more than anything else. No real new information has come out of this ruling by the Ninth Circuit.

    This case is a good reminder about where you can be sued because of your blog. If you do something wrong via your blog and you get sued, the alleged victim is going to sue you in their state and under their state’s laws. In this case, Cox was living in Montana when she made the original statements and she had to travel to Oregon to defend herself under Oregon’s laws.

    If you want more information about internet defamation, please check out my book, The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed. It has an entire chapter dedicated to online defamation. You can connected with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    ,
    , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • The Legalities of having a Bat Signal

    The Bat-Signal? by graphiclunarkid from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    The Bat-Signal? by graphiclunarkid from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have the palette of a five year-old and a massive sweet tooth – especially for ice cream. I would love to have a bat signal – well something like it but only in the shape of an ice cream cone. I want to be able to turn my bat signal on and have multiple people calling and texting to ask “What flavor?”

    Unfortunately, bat signals are illegal in Arizona. I was driving around this past December with a friend who remarked that a business that had moving spotlights pointing up at the sky was violating of a city ordinance. This inspired me to be a legal geek and look up why bat signals are illegal in the Arizona criminal laws and the Phoenix city ordinances. Here’s what I came up with.

    2012-12-14-0473 by Al Pavangkanan from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    2012-12-14-0473 by Al Pavangkanan from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    Disorderly Conduct (Class 1 Misdemeanor)
    Disorderly conduct is a catch-all law written to apply to activities that the powers that be dislike but where there isn’t a specific law on point. The Arizona disorderly conduct law prohibits excessive noise, but not excessive light. The law does prohibit “fighting, violent or seriously disruptive behavior,” but there may be an argument that a bat signal may be disruptive, but it shouldn’t be treated as being in the same category as physical violence.

    Public Nuisance (Class 2 Misdemeanor)
    I think this is what you might get if your neighbors call the cops on you. In Arizona it’s illegal to do anything that is “injurious to health, indecent, offensive to the senses or an obstruction to the free use of property that interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property by an entire community or neighborhood or by a considerable number of persons.” If your bat signal is so bright that it interferes with your neighbors’ ability to enjoy their property, it could be illegal.

    Criminal Nuisance (Class 3 Misdemeanor)
    In Arizona, a criminal nuisance is “conduct either unlawful in itself or unreasonable under the circumstances,” such as a person who “recklessly creates or maintains a condition which endangers the safety or health of others.” I could see law enforcement making a strong argument that turning on a bat signal could be hazardous to other’s safety, especially if it limits people’s ability to see or disrupt traffic on the streets or in the air.

    The City of Phoenix has city ordinances that require outdoor lighting to be shielded and/or filtered – including spotlights. The City also has rules against disturbing the peace or creating a nuisance that is “offensive to the senses.” The rules for using a searchlight say you can’t have one within 150 feet of a residential structure, that it can only be used between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m., and it can’t contain any advertising. I don’t think my bat signal is advertising because I’d use to get people to bring me ice cream, not to sell anything.

    I suspect if you want to have a bat signal, you’d have to get a permit to use it only for a special event and then after that it could only be used for show. The Phoenix rules require you to file for a permit at least 45 days in advance. I can’t plan my ice cream cravings out that far. It’s too bad – it would have been awesome to have a bat signal.

    If you want to chat more about this topic, you can connected with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    ,
    , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Arizona may Pass a Law Against Revenge Porn

    Pro Juventute Aufklärungskampagne ‚Sexting’ Themenbild_05 by Pro Juventute from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    Pro Juventute Aufklärungskampagne ‚Sexting’ Themenbild_05 by Pro Juventute from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    The Arizona legislature is considering a bill that would make “revenge porn” a felony. Revenge porn is the term commonly used when a person posts nude, often sexually explicit, photos or videos of another person on the internet without consent, likely after a bad break up.

    House Bill 2515 would prohibit a “person from knowingly disclosing, displaying, distributing, publishing, advertising or offering a photograph, videotape or film or digital recording or other reproduction of a person engaged in a sexual act or in a state of nudity without that person’s written consent.”

    If this bill becomes a law as it’s written, violating this law would be a Class 5 Felony (punishable by at least 6 months’ imprisonment and up to $150,000 fine), unless the person in the images is recognizable, then it would be a Class 4 Felony (punishable by at least 1 year in jail and up to $150,000 fine).

    Arizona already has a law on the books about cyberharassment. This law is broadly written and requires the perpetrator to intend “to terrify, intimidate, threaten or harass a specific person or persons.” This new revenge porn law doesn’t require a particular intent, just the knowledge that the perpetrator knew they were posting sexually explicit material without the subject’s consent. It only looks at their behavior, not their goal regarding the alleged victim.

    This bill has a long way to go before it becomes a law, and it has some opponents. Rep. Eddie Farnsworth is reported to oppose the law because people in the photos and videos often send the original images of themselves via “sexting” and they may be partially responsible for the continued distribution of the images.

    “Once you send it out, I think there’s some difficulty in claiming that you have a right to privacy,” Farnsworth said. “You sent it. It’s on the entire system.”

    What do you think about this bill – Should states have specific laws about revenge porn? Do you think the punishment should be up to a year in jail if the person in the photos or video can be identified?

    I constantly remind people, “Think before you post.” Even if this law passes, victims’ lives could still be destroyed by revenge porn. You don’t know who is going to see it or where it might end up. If you can’t handle the responsibility of taking intimate photos  or videos, don’t do it.

    If you want to chat more about revenge porn and this proposed law, please check out my book The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed. It has an entire chapter dedicated to invasion of privacy. You can connected with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    , ,
    , , , , , , , , , ,

  • What the Yelp Lawsuits Mean for You

    People Hate Us on Yelp by danoxster from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    People Hate Us on Yelp by danoxster from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    There are a few lawsuits going on right now involving reviews on Yelp. If you are a business owner who is concerned about what people might post about you or a person who likes to post reviews of products and services online, you should be paying attention.

    In the first case, the court ordered Yelp to reveal the identities of seven anonymous account holders who are being accused of posting false negative reviews about a business. The owner of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning filed the defamation lawsuit claiming that these people were not customers. Posting reviews of companies you haven’t used is also a violation of Yelp’s terms of service.

    The First Amendment protects people’s right to share their opinions, including anonymously. However, it doesn’t protect against defamatory speech. The challenge with anonymous speech is you could be unmasked if you do something wrong or if someone builds a strong case that you could be wrong. These cases are hard because the owner doesn’t know who is posting the anonymous review so they can’t cross check the review with their customer records so they often have to sue to identify the person so they can determine if they’ve been illegally harmed.  This case doesn’t concern me too much as long as the court is applying the proper standards to determine if the plaintiff has shown enough evidence of harm that would warrant a subpoena to reveal the posters’ identities.

    In the second case, a contracting company is suing a former customer for $750K for defamation after she posted a negative review on Yelp where she claimed her “home was damaged, she was billed for work that wasn’t done and jewelry went missing after she hired” the company. Defamation generally requires a false statement about a person or entity that’s communicated to a third party, and that hurts the person or entity’s reputation. In this case, the owner claims the review has cost his company business, so there’s his damage. If anything in her review is untrue and led to the drop in business, that’s likely defamation.

    Some people are concerned that these cases will prohibit people from posting negative reviews online, even when they are accurate. Given how many Yelp reviews have been posted and how few lawsuits have come out of them, I don’t think this should be a significant concern for Yelpers. I think these cases provide good lessons regarding internet law and etiquette:

    1. If you’re going to post reviews online, make sure you only share your accurate opinion. (BTW – Federal law requires you to only post your honest and accurate opinions.)
    2. The First Amendment protects your right to speak anonymously; however, if someone suspects your speech has harmed them, they may have to sue to get a subpoena for the website to reveal your identity to determine if they’ve been harmed. If you use your real name, they can cross check your review with their records.
    3. If you are a business owner, take care of your customers. If you treat them badly, have low quality products, or provide poor service, they will call you out online.

    I also made a video about how to respond to bad reviews online from a legal perspective:

    Most states have laws against strategic lawsuits against public participation, called anti-SLAPP laws. These are laws against filing lawsuits that are intended just to shut you up, not to address a situation where a person was legally harmed. If someone files a defamation lawsuit against you because of an online review and you feel like you’re being falsely accused, you should check to see if your state has an anti-SLAPP law.  

    If you want more information about internet defamation, please check out my book, The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed. It has an entire chapter dedicated to online defamation. You can connected with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    ,
    , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Highlights on Copyright & Publishing from the Indie Author Conference

    Rockin' my Magic Red Chucks at the Changing Hands Indie Author Conference - Photo by Jeff Moriarty (used with permission)
    Rockin’ my Magic Red Chucks at the Changing Hands Indie Author Conference – Photo by Jeff Moriarty (used with permission)

    I had the pleasure of speaking at the Changing Hands Indie Author Conference over the weekend. It was a day packed with sessions for indie authors and aspiring indie authors on how to publish and market a book. I did two sessions called “Legally Speaking” on how copyright applies to book writers. Here are the top 10 highlights from my presentation and the audience’s questions.

    1. You have copyright rights in your work the moment your ideas are captured in any tangible medium (paper, computer file, etc.). You still have your rights even if you forget to put a copyright notice in your book.

    2. Having a copyright gives you the exclusive right to copy, display, distribute, perform, and make derivative works based on your work. These rights last for the duration of your life, plus 70 years if your work was created after January 1, 1978.

    Close-up of my Magic Red Chucks - photo by Pam Slim (used with permission)
    Close-up of my Magic Red Chucks – photo by Pam Slim (used with permission)

    3. You don’t have to register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office to get your rights. You do have to register if you want to sue for infringement.

    4. You should submit you application to register the copyright in your book before you make it available for sale.

    5. If you live in a community property state (like Arizona), copyrights acquired during the marriage are community property unless you have a prenuptial agreement or spousal agreement that states otherwise.

    6. Make sure you understand the difference between a copyright assignment and a copyright license. In the former, you give away your copyright rights; in the latter you retain copyright ownership but grant someone permission to use some of your rights.

    7. If you are incorporating other works, characters from existing works, or trademarked products, consult an attorney to make sure you understand what legal risks you’re taking with your project.

    8. You will need works made for hire contracts or copyright assignments for artists who contribute to your book (i.e., illustrations, graphics, forward or afterward by another writer, cover art) to give you the copyright in what they create. Consider adding a provision to the contract that states the contributor indemnifies you if you’re accused of copyright infringement because of their contribution.

    9. When you create a budget for your book, plan to pay for a lawyer for a few hours to draft or review your contracts. Use a copyright lawyer, not your lawyer buddy who specializes in personal injury law.

    10. If you have a publisher, read your contracts carefully to make sure you understand what rights you’re giving up (if any) and how and when you’ll be paid. Don’t sign anything you don’t understand because you’ll probably be stuck with the contract as long as it’s not illegal. Never be afraid to ask for clarification.

    If you want to chat more about this topic, please can connected with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Courtney Love Wins her Twitter Defamation Case – What Does It Mean For You?

    Courtney at the Tabernacle by Katjusa Cisar from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    Courtney at the Tabernacle by Katjusa Cisar from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    Last week, a California jury reached a verdict in the Courtney Love Twitter defamation case – the first Twitter defamation case to go to trial. Love hired attorney Rhonda Holmes to represent her in a fraud case against the people who were managing Kurt Cobain’s estate. Their professional relationship didn’t work out, and in 2010, Love posted a tweet that said in part, “I was f***ing devestated [sic] when Rhonda J. Holmes esq. of san diego was bought off.” Holmes sued Love for defamation.

    In general, defamation requires a false statement about a person told to a third party, that hurts that person’s reputation. Essentially, Holmes argument was that the tweet was lie and that it damaged her reputation. Defamation is a state-law issue so check how the law is written in your state.

    Initially, I was surprised when I saw that Love won this lawsuit, until I read the full article. Then I made a video explaining why Courtney Love won this defamation case.

    The law applies different standard to defamation involving public persons versus private persons. When a public person is defamed, the victim can prevail if she can prove that the person making the statement acted with malice – meaning they knew or should have known that they were lying when they made the statement. When a private person claims they were defamed, they only have to show that there was a lie about them that hurt their reputation.  

    Holmes isn’t a celebrity lawyer. She’s just a person. You might think that Holmes would be treated like a private person, but the court said she was a public person in regards to this case because of her affiliation with Love. (Some people are public people all the time – i.e., celebrities – and some people are public figures only regarding certain issues.) Here, the jury believed Love when she said she didn’t know she was lying when she made the statement, so that’s why she won the case.

    So what does this mean for you? This case suggests that you can be Joe Average Nobody (private person) in your day-to-day life but if you are affiliated with a celebrity, you can be a public person in regards to your dealings with them. If you claim that your celebrity friend defamed you, you may have a higher bar to clear than if you were defamed by your Joe Average Nobody friend.

    Here’s something else to think about – celebrities are public people because they put themselves into  the public spotlight. If you are “internet famous” or put yourself online for all to see via your blog, YouTube channel, or on other social media platforms, you may become a public person. When you’re a public person, you can expect more criticism and the law will protect your critics against defamation claims as long as they didn’t know or couldn’t have known that they were lying about you when they did it.

    There is no cut-and-dry equation to determine whether you are a public or private person in regards to a defamation case unless you are an obvious celebrity. So if you are ever file a defamation lawsuit, part of the trial might be just determine whether you are a public or private person in the circumstances of the case to determine which standard applies.

    If you want more information about internet defamation, please check out my book,  The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed. It has an entire chapter dedicated to online defamation. You can connected with me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • How To Change Your Business Address with the Arizona Corporation Commission

    A.C.C. Statement of Change Paperwork for Carter Law Firm
    A.C.C. Statement of Change Paperwork for Carter Law Firm

    One of the exciting things that’s happened at Carter Law Firm in the last few months is we’ve moved from being a virtual law practice to having a brick-and-mortar office. It’s been wonderful settling in to our new digs.

    My New Office!
    It’s Official!

    As you all know, one of the things you have to do when you move is update your address. The firm’s mail service is paid up until March 2014 so we have plenty of time to update our information with all of our vendors, but then I started thinking about what we’d have to do with State and these were the type of questions that went through my head:

    • Ugh – How much of a pain in the ass is it going to be to update our information at the Corporation Commission?
    • Is it going to be expensive?
    • Do we have to publish?

    I jumped on the Corporation Commission’s forms page for LLCs and started digging around. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that updating the business and statutory agent’s address would be relatively simple to do. According to them, all it takes is a Statement of Change and a $5.00 fee – and no publication required. The paperwork was straightforward – old address, new address, and a signature. I didn’t change my statutory agent, just their address, so I didn’t have to complete the statutory agent acceptance form. I slapped on their cover sheet, wrote a check, made a copy of the paperwork for my records, and popped it into the mail.

    Rosie Watching the Office Through her Baby Gate
    Rosie Watching the Office Through her Baby Gate

    I could have paid an extra $35.00 to expedite it, but it wasn’t necessary so I didn’t. It will take them up to a month to update my file at the Corporation Commission, but I’ve had no trouble updating my address with anyone. I was surprised the bank didn’t ask to see my paperwork; they just took my word for it when I showed them my driver’s license.

    Now we’re in the process of getting everything updated – ordering new business cards and checks, updating the website, etc. It feels good to be in a proper office – especially one that lets Rosie come to work with me. She’s still getting used to office life. Watching the world through the office baby gate is less exciting than watching the street through the front door screen, but she loves the attention from my officemates.

    You can connected with me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    , , , , , ,

  • Why You Have to Respond to Suspected IP Infringement

    Cease and Desist by H.L.I.T. from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    Cease and Desist by H.L.I.T. from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    A few weeks ago we all had a good laugh when Jeff Briton, owner of Exit 6 Pub and Brewery in Cottleville, Missouri got a cease and desist letter from Starbucks when he named one of his craft beers “Frappicino.” Starbucks said this was too similar to their Frappuccino and even took the liberty of contacting the beer review website Untappd to get the Frappicino beer listing removed.

    Briton responded with a letter and a check for $6 – the profit he made from selling the beer to the three people who reviewed it on Untappd. If you haven’t read this letter yet, go do it. It’s hilarious.

    My hat’s off to Briton for writing such a brilliant response and turning this situation into an awesome opportunity to promote Exit 6. Some people might say that Starbucks’ lawyers were being jerks for sending a cease and desist letter to the little guy who wasn’t their competition anyway. But it was what Starbucks had to do to protect its intellectual property.

    When you have a copyright or a trademark and you know that someone is using your intellectual property without your permission and you do nothing, you send a message that you don’t care about protecting your intellectual property rights. If you let the little guys get away with things like Frappicino beer and then one of your big competitors does something similar and you try to lay the smack down on them, your competitor will have an argument that your track record shows that you let others use your property without permission or penalty. By not protecting your intellectual property, you put yourself at risk of losing your intellectual property rights.

    It’s because of this risk that Starbucks has to send cease and desist letters to Exit 6 Pub. This is why I tell clients to keep an eye out for other people using their intellectual property. In trademark situations, a cease and desist letter is usually the proper response, even in situations like Frappicino beer.

    This is also why I tell bloggers and photographers to be diligent about who is using their work. If they find that someone’s using their copyrights without permission, even if they’re ok with it, I often recommend they contact the alleged infringer and grant them a license after the fact and request an attribution if the infringer didn’t give them one. If they’re not ok with what the alleged infringer did, we discuss whether the artist wants to send a cease and desist, a DMCA takedown notice, a licensing agreement with a bill, or sue for infringement. There should always be a response.

    If you have questions about your intellectual property rights or your strategy to protect them, please contact an intellectual property attorney in your community. If you have questions related to copyright or trademark and blogging, please check out my book The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed.

    If you want to chat with me more about this topic, you can connected with me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
    Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

    •

    Ruth Carter

    •

    , , , ,
    , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,