Sad: Why Haven't Other Internet Companies Stood Up For Craigslist Against AGs?

from the take-a-stand dept

For quite some time now, we've been covering how various state attorneys general have been publicly grandstanding and threatening Craigslist, despite no actual legal basis. That grandstanding, of course, has "worked." It's resulted in Craigslist settling twice, and now shutting down the adult services section, leading those ads to migrate elsewhere actually helping those responsible, and making it harder for law enforcement to do its job. In testimony to Congress, Craigslist is pointing out that many of those other sites are not nearly as willing to help law enforcement.

But there's another issue here. As Ryan Singel points out, this grandstanding campaign is really an attack on the rather important Section 230 safe harbors for online service providers. Richard Blumenthal, who has led the attack, despite a lack of jurisdiction or legal basis is currently running for Senate, and apparently is interested in changing Section 230. Singel asked Blumenthal first under what legal theory Craigslist was liable, and got back vague claims of how its failure to enforce its terms of service violated Connecticut consumer protection laws -- an incredibly weak claim unlikely to stand up to any scrutiny. But, more seriously, Singel asked about Section 230, and Blumenthal said the law "is outdated and needs revision."

"I support changes clarifying and strengthening the law to hold websites accountable when they knowingly enable or promote illegal activity."

Beware that "enable." Blumenthal wants to expand massive liability to internet services in a manner that would kill off significant innovation. Could you enable illegal activity via Google, Facebook, Twitter, Skype or many other popular internet services? You bet. Section 230 is designed to make sure the liability actually went to those responsible, not to the service providers and tools they used. Changing that is incredibly dangerous for innovation.

And, yet, as Single points out, these other companies haven't stepped up to support Craigslist in the grandstanding against them. Of course, the PR reasons are clear: no one wants to be in a position where critics could twist their words and misleadingly and falsely claim they "support" exploitation. But this is a big deal and in keeping quiet, bad things may happen:

The logical extension of what Blumenthal & Co say they want is a world where even they couldn't use Facebook, Twitter and Flickr to connect with their constituents, for fear that one of them (or their political enemies) would plant incriminating material they could then be sued over.

And even if they were successful, and didn't care about that consequences, would ads for prostitution disappear from the face of the earth? Not likely. The same ads that Craigslist is pilloried for dominate the back pages of alternative weeklies. The printed Yellow Pages carries ads for "Escort Services." You can find them in the Village Voice-owned Backpages.com. And beyond the media world, it's not very hard to find "Massage" parlors in any major U.S. city, where I'd venture to guess, you are more likely to find human-trafficking than you were anywhere on Craigslist. And back in the relative shadows from whence they came would only exploiters of women and children would only have more power.

The collateral damage of a wrong-headed pursuit Craigslist is an assault on the open internet itself.

Singel also points out, as we have in the past, that the key point of grandstanding these days is on the revenue Craigslist made from these ads -- something that only started when these very same AGs forced Craigslist to start charging for the ads as part of an earlier settlement.

Singel wants to know why other internet companies aren't speaking up. Because the end result of letting Craigslist hang on its own on this topic is going to come back to haunt them. Already, in the same Congressional hearings today where Craigslist was attacked, those who pushed this damaging situation on the company are sharpening their knives for other internet companies:

"Every pimp has a MySpace page," Frundt testified, adding that ads also show up on Backpages.com. "Every john uses a john board and posts information on where to buy children."

"This has been going on for many years. We must do something about our children being sold on the internet."

Indeed! We absolutely must do something -- but the something we should do is use these tools to go after and stop those actually responsible rather than pushing them around the internet, and blaming the tools they use. That doesn't stop the activity. It doesn't protect the exploited. It doesn't help the situation. It creates a false target, and a situation in which the very principles on which the internet has been built get undermined, at a potentially huge cost to innovation, communication and free speech.

Filed Under: grandstanding, innovation, richard blumenthal, section 230
Companies: craigslist, facebook, google, myspace, twitter

Ghostbuster Sues MySpace For Allowing Another Ghostbuster To Set Up A Website With A Similar Name

from the who-you-gonna-call? dept

Who you gonna call? Perhaps a better lawyer. Apparently, a self-professed "ghostbuster" who calls his business "Ghost Scene Investigations" is suing MySpace because some other "ghostbuster" is also using the same name and set up a MySpace page about it. The actual lawsuit claims both copyright and trademark infringement: Of course, as noted in the article, the copyright claim against MySpace makes no sense for a variety of reasons, starting with the fact that you can't copyright the name of a company. Second, MySpace is clearly protected by the safe harbors of the DMCA. The guy even tries an "inducement" claim against MySpace, which only serves to highlight how ridiculous the concept of making secondary copyright infringement against the law is: people will keep trying to stretch it. As for the trademark claims, as Eric Goldman notes in the article linked above, you can't trademark a descriptive phrase, and while there isn't a DMCA-style safe harbor for trademarks, courts will often effectively create a safe harbor for third parties unless there's clear evidence that they were really complicit.

Filed Under: copyright, ghostbusters, trademark
Companies: myspace

Cuomo's New Plan: A Good Idea Or A Chance For More Grandstanding?

from the that's-not-ridiculous dept

As part of NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's grandstanding against child porn, he's mostly been making silly threats against the wrong parties in ways that don't actually help stop child porn (and could make it worse). However, his latest announcement actually sounds a lot more reasonable. His office is putting together a database of offending photos, and letting social networks compare uploads to the database to try to stop the uploads of known offending photos. I would imagine that it also records who was trying to upload that content. Some care would need to be taken to make sure that this effort really does focus on actually offending images -- one thing that makes such an effort tricky. I also do wonder if it makes sense for a gov't agency to be putting together the database, rather than having it done by the industry itself. On top of that, given Cuomo's earlier grandstanding and his usual methods, you have to expect that it would be long before Cuomo would start threatening any social network that doesn't use his system with some sort of bogus (but very, very public) legal threats. In other words, when the gov't (especially someone like Cuomo) sets up a system like this, how long until he starts acting like it's mandatory, rather than optional?

Filed Under: andrew cuomo, database, grandstanding
Companies: facebook, myspace

Juror Didn't Disclose MySpace Friendship With Defendant... Because It Was Just MySpace

from the talk-about-damning-myspace dept

Here's a fun one. An appeals court in West Virginia has granted a new trial to a defendant because one of the jurors failed to disclose that she was a "friend" on MySpace with the defendant and had sent him a message during the trial. The message itself was mostly meaningless ("I can tell ya that God has a plan for you and your life..." etc. and even mentioned "Hey, I don't know you very well"), but the juror never bothered to mention that she knew the defendant at all, let alone well enough to be a MySpace connection. When asked why, she answered:

I knew in my heart that I didn't know him . . . I should have at least said that . . . he was on MySpace, which really [wasn't] important, I didn't think.

Ouch for MySpace. Either way, a new trial has been ordered, and yet again questions revolving around social media in the courtroom need to be tackled in court.

Filed Under: disclosure, friendship, jurors, social networking
Companies: myspace

Careful With That Fake Social Networking Profile; If You 'Personate' Someone, You Can Go To Jail

from the careful-who-you-mock dept

We've seen numerous lawsuits involving schools punishing students for setting up fake social networking profiles of principals or teachers. However, could setting up a fake profile actually be a criminal offense that gets you sent to jail? Evan Brown has the news of how a California appeals court has ruled that a guy who set up a fake MySpace profile of his former pastor can stand trial for the crime of "personation." Apparently, in California, it's illegal to (a) assume the persona of someone else and then (b) do something while pretending to be that person that could get that person into legal trouble. So, it's not just setting up the profile that gets you in trouble, but then doing something with the profile (in this case, the guy suggested the pastor used drugs and was gay).

Filed Under: fake profiles, personate, pretending
Companies: myspace

Canadian Supreme Court To Hear Case Over Liability For Linking To Defamatory Information

from the linkety-link dept

You may recall that a few years back, Canadian politician Wayne Crookes started suing a whole bunch of sites, including Wikipedia, Google, Yahoo and MySpace, just because of postings on those sites that Crookes felt were libelous. Whether or not the comments actually were defamatory was a big open question, but a bigger issue was why he was suing the service providers, rather than those actually responsible for the comments. Some of those lawsuits got tossed out on a jurisdictional technicality, but Crookes then also sued some others, claiming libel for just linking to a site that was potentially libelous as well. One of those sued was Jon Newton, the operator of P2Pnet.net, a site that many of you read. Newton had linked to the stories in question, but did not repeat was written in them or offer any commentary -- and yet Crookes claimed that just the links were defamatory.

Thankfully, both the district court and the appeals court said that just linking was not defamatory, but the reasoning was a bit odd, and left some potential issue open. Now, as a bunch of folks have submitted, the Canadian Supreme Court is gearing up to take on the issue. There are really two questions here: whether or not the initial link is defamation, and secondarily, whether or not it becomes defamation if you refuse to take down the link after being alerted to it being defamatory.

In the US, Section 230 of the CDA protects website publishers in both cases. In Canada, the law is not at all clear on this issue, and there's a very real threat of a pretty massive chilling effect if the Supreme Court decides that linking (or even refusing to take down a link) can constitute defamation. Hopefully, the Supreme Court agrees that merely linking should never be seen as defamation -- and preferably, the Canadian Parliament makes this doubly clear by putting in place some basic safe harbors as well.

Filed Under: canada, wayne crookes
Companies: google, myspace, wikipedia, yahoo

Just As Netflix Gets In Trouble For Data Release, MySpace Begins Selling Data

from the lawsuits-a'comin? dept

So, just last week we noted that Netflix had gotten itself into a bit of hot water for its Netflix prize contest, which used real user data -- which was supposed to be anonymous. Unfortunately, as with most such data, it wasn't really anonymous, and that's illegal -- especially when it comes to movie rental data. Because of all that, Netflix has also canceled plans for a follow-up prize competition. However, just as that happened, reports were coming out that MySpace has begun selling user data. Among the data up for sale? "User playlists, mood updates, mobile updates, photos, vents, reviews, blog posts, names and zipcodes. You would have to imagine that at least some people might not be happy about that.

Now, to be fair, the info you provide MySpace is public -- while the info you provide Netflix is not. However, you could certainly see some people not being particularly thrilled that MySpace is now directly selling that information, and you have to imagine that someone will file a lawsuit before too long over this data.

Update: MySpace PR people sent over word that this content is no different than the free public real-time stream, it's just for those unable to capture it, they can now purchase it in a lump sum via this other site, for which MySpace apparently doesn't make any money...

Filed Under: selling data, social networks
Companies: myspace, netflix

Who's Behind The False Rumors That Facebook Might Start Charging?

from the you-gotta-wonder dept

Way back when Friendster was the super hot social networking startup with an unworkable business model, there was suddenly a rush of rumors that the company was going to start charging for use. Even though the company never suggested plans to charge, there was an outcry among users -- and I remember getting messages from people threatening to boycott Friendster if it ever did charge. In fact, many people started suggesting alternatives... with MySpace being a key one. It wasn't long after this episode that many people really did start migrating over to MySpace. Later on there were reports that the "rumors" about Friendster charging were actually started (and then spread) by MySpace employees. And it worked.

It looks like someone may be trying to pull the same trick with Facebook. Apparently a bunch of rumors have been spreading about Facebook planning to charge, resulting in huge protest groups in Facebook, and the company needing to make a public denial of any plans to charge. In Facebook's case, this is even more believable because the company claims that it's already profitable from existing ad sales. And, knowing how Facebook operates, I can't see anyone there seriously considering charging for use. They know the idea is preposterous and would destroy the site.

So the only thing I'm wondering is who kicked off these rumors? Is it another social network? Is it MySpace again trying to regain relevance? Or was it really just another malware scam to get people to click on unsafe links, that then resulted in a misguided panic?

Filed Under: charging, rumors, social networks
Companies: facebook, friendster, myspace

MySpace Replaces All iMeem Playlists With Ads -- Doesn't Ask Permission

from the is-that-legal? dept

With MySpace buying up some of iMeem's assets (and leaving many musicians with little hope of getting paid what they're owed), one of the big complaints was that all of iMeem's public playlists simply disappeared overnight. This was particularly obnoxious, because plenty of people had relied on iMeem for legal music streaming of playlists they had put together. It appears that last week MySpace decided to add insult to injury and quietly started replacing all iMeem playlists with giant ads. I just checked the one iMeem playlist I had created on a different blog, and, sure enough, in its place was a giant flash ad for Beyonce ringtones.

This should be a warning for anyone using any third party widget maker for placing content on your site. You're basically giving others control over what they display on your site, but it's particularly obnoxious to replace something like a music playlist with an advertisement. Many sites that included iMeem playlists were non-commercial, and sneaking ads into them could potentially impact other issues. As we were recently discussing, Vimeo says that you can't post its videos to sites with ads (even though it seems to ignore most people who do). But what if you had Vimeo videos on a site that also had an iMeem playlist? Suddenly that site has "gone commercial" with ads, even though the owner of the site might not even realize it.

As many people are claiming that streaming services like Spotify and the now-Apple-owned Lala are "the future of music," including their ability to post streamable playlists, it's worth remembering what happened in this instance. It's certainly making me think twice about ever using a third party app for streaming content, knowing that they might just replace it with an ad down the road.

Filed Under: ads, embedded music, music streaming, playlists, third party apps
Companies: imeem, myspace

Artists: Don't Expect To Get Paid For What Imeem & Snocap Owe You

from the sorry,-too-bad dept

We always hear the record labels and politicians screaming bloody murder over the concept that musicians aren't being paid "what they're owed" due to piracy -- but when there's a situation where musicians might actually not be getting paid what they're owed? Silence. A few weeks back, MySpace "bought" Imeem in a fire sale. But, the details of the deal suggest they didn't actually buy the company, but "certain assets," which means they get to ignore the liabilities. Guess what those liabilities include? You got it: paying artists what they're owed. Now, as the Wired article notes, there's nothing technically wrong with MySpace acquiring just the assets, but it is notable that it's the musicians left without getting paid what they're actually owed (not some theoretical concept like what they might be "owed" due to unauthorized file sharing). And, yet, we don't seem to hear any politicians or record labels screaming about this. Funny, since they keep insisting that they're really just interested in helping artists...

Filed Under: copyright, money, music, paid
Companies: imeem, myspace, snocap