Hot News Doctrine Already Being Stretched; Company Says Its Contact Database Is Hot News

from the hot-news-needs-to-burn dept

In the last year, there's been a sudden resurgence in interest in the concept of "hot news," a doctrine that most people thought was dead and buried, which allowed a judicially-created form of intellectual property on factual information that was deemed to be "hot news." There's no statute that covers this. Just a court decision. And that was a century or so ago. But... the concept started showing back up in court recently, and in March a ruling came down, blocking a website from reporting on news for two hours, using this doctrine. With that on the books, other "hot news" lawsuits were quickly filed.

However, one such recent lawsuit seems to stretch the concept of hot news so far that you can only sit back and admire the audacity of including it in the lawsuit, while fearing the results should a court actually buy it. Thomas O'Toole has the details of what is likely to be a very interesting lawsuit on a few different factors, beyond just the hot news claim (but we'll get to those other issues, so read on...).

The case apparently involves an employee at Goldman Sachs (or potentially multiple employees) who got the username and password of another account holder on a database put together by a company called Ipreo Networks, called "Bigdough." Bigdough is apparently a database of contact info on 80,000 financial industry people. The Goldman Sachs employee(s) logged in with someone else's username/password and downloaded a bunch of information.

This sort of thing happens all of the time. People share logins all of the time. Violating it is basically a terms of service violation, but here the company has broken out the big guns. Yes, it's claiming that the contact info in its database represents "hot news," and Goldman accessing it is a violation of the "hot news" doctrine. Think about that for a second. Contact information. "Hot news?" And, of course, the whole purpose of the "hot news" doctrine is about another publisher republishing the information -- something that Goldman Sachs didn't do here at all. The whole "hot news" claim here seems to stretch the (already questionable) concept way past the breaking point. Hopefully that part gets tossed quickly. Otherwise, imagine what else will suddenly be called "hot news."

But that's not all that's interesting in this case. As O'Toole notes in his report, there are two other interesting legal questions, having to do with the use of someone else's login. First, there's the question of whether or not Goldman Sachs is liable here, even if the actions are just that of a rogue employee (or group of employees). O'Toole points out that the legal standard to get GS on the hook here is pretty damn high. The second question, of course, is whether or not just using a login that someone shared with you is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). We recently discussed how there are also a growing series of cases trying to stretch the CFAA to make all sorts of activities classified as "unauthorized access." CFAA was really designed as an anti-hacking law -- which was about people really breaking in to a computer system. If someone simply shares their login credentials with you, does that really count as criminal hacking? If that's the case, an awful lot of people may be guilty of doing so.

So, this should be a fun one to follow. Three separate interesting legal questions, and in all three cases, Ipreo appears to be trying to stretch the law beyond its intentions, so hopefully the court recognizes this. If you want to see the full filing, it's below:

Filed Under: bigdough, cfaa, contacts, database, hacking, hot news
Companies: goldman sachs, ipreo networks

Is The Goldman Sachs Stolen Code A Big Deal?

from the not-really dept

A few weeks back there was a lot of news over a former Goldman Sachs programmer who was arrested by the FBI for supposedly "stealing code" he had worked on while at GS. The headlines made a big deal over the importance of this software, talking about how its proprietary nature could represent a "huge loss" for the banking giant. That struck me as typical journalistic hyperbole, and it's great to see the NY Times actually be the one to step in with an op-ed from a programmer who points out how blown out of proportion this story likely is compared to the real issue. The op-ed piece makes two key points: (1) It's pretty common for programmers to keep copies of their code, if only to be able to refer back to it and (2) the code, by itself, isn't really all that useful. He notes that simply reusing someone else's code really doesn't help much -- and what most companies want is better code that is better suited to what their approach is -- meaning that they want the know-how of the programmer, not the old code.

Filed Under: code, stolen code, wall street
Companies: goldman sachs

Goldman Sachs Caves Against Gripes Site; Money Doesn't Buy Bogus Trademark Lawsuit Wins

from the that's-one-for-the-little-conspiracy-theory-guy dept

Back in April, we wrote about the odd decision by massive Goldman Sachs to threaten legal action against a gripes/conspiracy site called GoldmanSachs666.com. The site was obviously not an official site of GS or endorsed by the company, and any moron in a hurry would recognize immediately that it was an anti-Goldman Sachs site. Threatening it made absolutely no sense. The company, as large as it is, had almost no chance to win in court, and the threat would only get that much more attention to the site itself -- which it has.

And, now that Goldman Sachs has bestowed so much media attention on the gripes site it's basically caved in and withdrawn its complaint (via CitMediaLaw). But, that still doesn't explain how anyone at Goldman Sachs thought it was a good idea in the first place to bully this guy?

Filed Under: gripes sites, trademark
Companies: goldman sachs

Goldman Sachs Doesn't Pay Attention: Threatens Gripe Site

from the this-will-end-badly dept

Just as we saw some corporate lawyers (finally!) advising clients not to freak out and go legal when they saw a "gripes site" show up, it appears that Goldman Sachs has done exactly that. The company and its lawyers have apparently been threatening the site GoldmanSachs666.com. The company is pulling out the oldest trick in the book, claiming that Goldman Sachs customers are "confused" by the site:

"Your use of the mark Goldman Sachs violates several of Goldman Sachs' intellectual property rights, constitutes an act of trademark infringement, unfair competition and implies a relationship and misrepresents commercial activity and/or an affiliation between you and Goldman Sachs which does not exist and additionally creates confusion in the marketplace,"

This is a stretch. Many, many courts have found that such sites are perfectly legitimate, because no one would confuse a site complaining about a company for the company itself. It's likely that Goldman Sachs felt that sending the cease-and-desist would scare the blogger into shutting up. But... as with so many of these things, all it's actually done is draw a hell of a lot more attention to the site. You would think that the bank would have a few more important things to be focused on than some ranting blogger. Indeed, the fact that they seem to want him to shut up, gives him a lot more legitimacy than if the bank had simply ignored him. The fact that management or the lawyers (or both) think this is a big enough issue to deal with suggests that they're actually concerned about what he's saying.

Filed Under: cease-and-desist, gripe site, streisand effect, trademark
Companies: goldman sachs

Wall Street Banks Back Off Plans To Finance Films

from the no-motion-pictures dept

In the past year or so, there's been a surge of interest on Wall Street in financing Hollywood films. As the cost of making motion pictures continues to spiral higher, it makes sense that studios would look beyond its traditional networks to raise money. That being said, we had some hope that investment banks and hedge funds could be a positive force in the industry, since they'd likely be reluctant to write a blank check for some of the big budget, big star boondoggles that have characterized the industry of late. Well, it looks like we'll have to wait awhile before we learn how this plays out. The credit crunch has prompted Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank to postopone plans to raise $1 billion to fund films at MGM. The banks could still do the deal if they see a lot of investor demand for it, but that seems pretty unlikely in light of current conditions. Meanwhile, the Hollywood studios might have to make do with a bit less cash.

Filed Under: credit crunch, finance, hollywood, wall street
Companies: deutsche bank, goldman sachs, mgm

Investment Banks Asked To Make Private Exchanges More Compatible

from the network-effects-baby dept

We've been following the recent rise of private electronic stock exchanges established by the major investment banks for the purpose of offering companies a place to sell stock without being subject to SEC regulations. While there seems to be interest in this model, a potential complication would arise if the various exchanges were incompatible. It would hamper liquidity if a company going "public "on Goldman's exchange, for example, was only open to investors participating on that exchange. According to Dealbook, listing firms are prodding the banks to open up their exchanges to promote liquidity. If this does happen, there's a much better chance of these markets having a significant impact. One other problem that won't be solved easily arises from an SEC rule which states that any company with more than 499 public shareholders is necessarily a public company and thus compelled to abide by the full spate of regulations. If participation is limited to a handful of large investing institutions, this might be okay, but the rule will prevent this system from getting too popular.

Filed Under: investment banks, private stock exchange, sec
Companies: goldman sachs

More Banks Set To Establish Their Own Stock Exchanges

from the privately-public dept

Last week, private equity firm Apollo Management announced that it would sell shares of itself on a private stock exchange run by Goldman Sachs. Because the exchange is closed to most investors, companies listing on it don't have to comply with various government regulations, which they would if they were to list on, say, the New York Stock Exchange. Considering all of the headaches associated with being a public company these days, this option may look increasingly appealing for companies looking for an alternative way to raise money and give its owners liquidity. It's not surprising, then, that many of the big name investment banks, including Citigroup, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley are all rushing to build out their own private, electronic stock exchanges. The question, however, is whether or not these various exchanges will be compatible or whether they'll be islands, with little inter-exchange trading. If they're the former, then a robust alternative market could flourish. If it's the latter, then the appeal to both traders and companies is likely to be limited.

Filed Under: banks, wall street
Companies: citigroup, goldman sachs