Jack of All Blogs » Intellectual Property

When Your Company’s Name Means “Haven’t Had Secks Yet”

capslock — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:58:02 +0000

You just gotta love Virgin. If not for the sodas, or the mobile service, then maybe even just the name itself sparks interest. Imagine the double entredes and really witty copy their advertising agents can come up with. Take this for example.

Here’s the image source, and there seems to be an interesting discussion over at the comment threads. A bit dated, but still interesting.

Now what could “free … virgin to virgin” mean?

Seems like Virgin is in hot water for stealing photos from Flickr. Here’s he original photo (from here).

Horror of horrors! They flipped the image.

Virgin Mobile is facing a lawsuit for using an image from Flickr of a Dallas teenager without any consent, in its marketing campaign “Are You With Us Or What?”

According to The Dallas Morning News, the photo of Alison Chang flashing a peace sign had appeared in a printed ad with the caption “Dump your pen friend” and was seen in Adelaide, Australia. The Herald Sun also cited that another caption “Free virgin to virgin” was placed in a different ad. -901am

The kid says she felt insulted.

The complaint says the ad caused Alison “to experience and suffer humiliation, severe embarrassment, frustration, grief and general mental anguish damages, all of which, in reasonable probability, will subsist in the future. -Dallas News

If Virgin stole a photo of me and slapped a “virgin” label somewhere I would most definitely feel insulted. Virgin? Most definitely not.

Seriously, Virgin’s PR people need a lesson in intellectual property rights and child welfare rights.

Is AdWords Illegal?

jangelo — Sat, 12 May 2007 13:30:48 +0000

Of course, Google AdWords per se is not illegal. But the very tenets of the AdWords system–which lets advertisers bid for ad space based on keywords–may be in trouble. 901am reports of a recent lawsuit involving Google and a company called American Blind & Wallpaper Factory, Inc. American Blinds argues that Google is infringing on its trademarks by allowing competitors to bid on their keywords (i.e., “American Blinds”). This way, the company’s competitors can get top spot in relevant AdSense ad units, and even in AdWords for search units.

According to Reuters, American Blinds complaint argues that Google’s system violates trademark law by allowing competitors of American Blinds to use Google’s system to buy keyword search terms, such as “American Blind,” which trigger ads from rival companies.

“We spend millions of dollars annually to build brand awareness and cannot stand idle while Google allows our competitors to ride our coattails,” said a statement from Steve Katzman, CEO of American Blind.

Is this reasonable? Well, I’m no lawyer, but if they are using this argument, then perhaps they can also consider the possibility of competitors optimizing for those keywords. Macalua.com says some companies are already using their competitors’ names to optimize for search engine ranking. And they’re succeeding.

But Marc Macalua cites the Google AdWords policies in saying this practice is not acceptable.

Smart Communications Inc. is bringing the telco wars to search. Do a search for “globe visibility” (the product name for Globe Telecom’s flagship 3G/HSDPA mobile broadband service) and you’ll see the Smart 3G Adwords ad in the top PPC spot.

Is this keyword hijacking strategy legal? No, it’s not legal. That’s according to the Google Adwords FAQ:

Google takes allegations of trademark infringement very seriously and, as a courtesy, we’re happy to investigate matters raised by trademark owners. Also, our Terms and Conditions with advertisers prohibit intellectual property infringement by advertisers and make it clear that advertisers are responsible for the keywords they choose to generate advertisements and the text that they choose to use in those advertisements.

But then it’s not easy to monitor each and every AdWords bid to see if it’s potentially infringing on another company’s trademarks or copyrights.

Again, things like these bring up more questions, especially in the light of a changing media landscape, and changing practices and norms in the fields of PR and even law. Google is turning out to be the biggest player of them all, but is still not immune to criticisms and legal liabilities.

So is using a competitor’s keywords or name illegal? Probably, from the perspective of Google’s ToS, yes. But is Google liable when a client uses a competitor’s trade name as keywords? That’s what we have to find out soon.

Is There Still Any Original Content Out There?

The Sheriff — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:10:54 +0000

We’ve come to a point where it’s really, really difficult to come up with anything that’s totally original. It seems the Internet has made information easily accessible at a moment’s notice, and this has made us lazy. At least that’s what some people in the academe think.

A new study looking at “personal essays” written for university admission supports this theory by pointing out repeated examples of plagiarism, where applicants pretty clearly took “personal essays” that were from certain websites and used the ideas and personal experiences in them as their own. One of the most popular, apparently, was an essay about a fascination for chemistry that began with the applicant setting fire to his or her pajamas at age 8. Apparently, that particular scenario happened to 234 individuals… Or, more likely, just one of them, and the rest took the idea from the fact that the essay was posted to a site showing “successful” personal statements. Most of the essays weren’t plagiarized directly — they just built on the idea. -Techdirt

Imagine, an essay on personal experiences, and hundreds of people would share a single particular scenario. Of course, while this might not necessarily be downright plagiarism, this is a sign that a good number of students have gone to building on other people’s work instead of doing something more creative and original.

Granted, there’s probably no truly original idea anymore these days. Hey, even we bloggers are fond of building on other people’s work, sometimes adding our own two or three lines of opinion and commentary. But there are only those certain times when this is acceptable. And copy other people’s personal experiences as one’s own doesn’t count.

But then some people would rather take a more positive approach.

Jeremy Wagstaff … suggests that perhaps many of the applicants don’t think of it as “plagiarism” but more like wiki-style collaboration. That is, they’ve grown up in an age of internet collaboration where no one person “owns” the content, but that content is an ongoing process of ideas that anyone can participate in. In such a world, the idea of “plagiarism” has little meaning.

The same innovations that have made us lazy are in fact also making us collectively more creative. So since I’m too lazy to create something entirely new, I get help from my peers and build on each other’s work. It’s like asking neighbors for help when building a house. You can only work so fast, and you probably have a limited knowledge of architecture, carpentry, and interior design (and even plumbing!). But if everyone pitches in and builds on ideas contributed by everyone else, you’d have something done by day’s end.

Is there still any original content out there?

Or perhaps the question should be, has there ever been any truly original content not inspired or influenced by other works, in the first place?

Ask Permission. It’s The Decent Thing To Do.

jangelo — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 06:17:01 +0000

In my years of blogging I’ve encountered numerous requests to cite my posts and even to syndicate my blog’s content through RSS. By this I mean actually re-publishing the content I made on other sites (sometimes just the summary from the feed). And most of the time I’ve agreed. Actually, my stuff is already published under Creative Commons by attribution licenses. So people are free to use it as long as it’s for non-commercial purposes. And what do you know, the CC license even states that if explicit permission is granted, users may be free to use the content as they please, as long as this is within the agreement with the creator.

Makes me think about something previously posted here by Franky about why not to use Flickr images on your blog.

Back to flickr. No matter if you link back, credit the photo or rely on Fair Use, sooner or later D’Artagnan, or was it Don Quichote, will show up and create a whole drama in your comments.
…
Imagine the photographer suddenly decides to change the license into “no rights”.

Now those are good points. Licenses can be changed anytime and you might find yourself in hot water for pics that are suddenly illegally used.

I think there’s nothing that cannot be solved by some good ol’ fashioned diplomacy. I’d say go ahead and use Flickr images. To be sure, don’t forget to use the search for CC licensed images that allow republishing, modifications, or even commercial use. But it would be best to both link to the original site, and also to ask permission from the owner of the photo, even if it’s explicitly stated that you may already use the image. For one, you get to have new online contacts. And then you’re assured that the person is allowing you to use his or her content, even if the license changes in the future. Emails make for good paper trail.

You get to cover your arse and make new friends at the same time.

Fox Subpoenas Google For YouTube User Account

jangelo — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 05:14:03 +0000

And so it happens. I remember awhile back predicting that Google is bound to get a lot of legal flak for stuff on its most recent big acquisition–YouTube. So a good number of stuff on YouTube is copyrighted material. Not everyone is complaining, though. Some have even banked on getting more popular because of their material on YouTube. Fox doesn’t think so, though. The Blog Herald cites reports that Fox is subpoenaing Google for a YouTuber’s ID.

It looks like Google’s dedication to the privacy of its users will tested once again. Twentyth Century Fox has filed a subpoena against the search engine king in order to reveal the identity of a certain YouTuber who uploaded a certain episode of the show 24 online.

(Digital Bulletin) The subpoena, which was filed by a judge in California on January 18, could spark a heavyweight media collision between 20th Century Fox and Google, which acquired social media site YouTube for $1.65bn last year. It was also issued to lesser-known video-sharing site LiveDigital. […]

The new episodes of ‘24′, which stars Kiefer Sutherland and Elisha Cuthbert, appeared on YouTube on January 8, six days prior to its official January 14 premiere on News Corp-owned broadcaster Fox.

Google has currently suspended the account of the account of the YouTuber, who went by the name of ECOtotal. Google (as usual) has provided no comment over the subpoena, although this latest incident makes one wonder whether or not the search engine king is actually enforcing its copyright policy, something they vowed to do last year in October.

Well, surely that sucks for Fox–to have your material shown on the Internet days before the actual airing! But then again, to some, seeing Elisha Cuthbert makes it all worth it! Long live YouTube!