Ridiculous Criminal Trial Of Google Execs Begins In Italy

from the bad-news-all-around dept

eWeek has a report noting that the ridiculous criminal trial of four Google executives in Italy is starting this week, with the surprise news that one of the execs in question, Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer, is expected to appear. The eWeek report oddly credits the news of the trial to the International Association of Privacy Professionals, claiming they broke the story on Monday -- but plenty of folks have been covering this story for many months. The only bit of news is that the trial has begun, and that Fleischer made the mistake of traveling to Italy to give a talk at the University of Milan, where he was taken into custody.

The trial, however, makes a mockery of just about any bit of common sense out there -- on so many different levels. First of all, as described when the charges were first released, the issue was a video that was uploaded to Google of some kids taunting a disabled boy. The video was up for about two days before Google was made aware of it -- at which point it was immediately taken down. So why are random Google execs being tried for criminal charges? I can't figure it out at all. First, Italy actually does have a law that protects internet service providers from liability for the actions of their users. That's good... but for some bizarre reason, it doesn't count Google as a service provider.

Even so, there's absolutely no fathomable reason for why anyone would think that Google's execs should be charged with anything. Google, the company, had no proactive role in uploading the videos. The execs in question had absolutely nothing to do with the video at all. Google was actually proactive in removing the video as soon as it became aware of it. And, most ridiculous of all, the video itself was actually useful as evidence to charge the kids who taunted the disabled boy. By charging the Google execs under criminal statutes, all prosecutors are doing is making sure that in the future, no such evidence exists. As we noted when this story first came out, the kids in question apparently hit the disabled boy with a packet of tissues as well. It would seem like the tissue company is much more responsible for what happened than Google. So why aren't we seeing charges filed against the tissue company execs?

Filed Under: copyright, italy, liability, video, youtube
Companies: google

Record Labels Make The Case That Irish ISP Is Guilty Of Copyright Infringement

from the inducing-a-joke dept

A few different readers sent in the latest on the lawsuit that the major record labels have filed against Irish ISP Eircom. While the adversarial relationship between ISPs and the recording industry has been discussed for years, this is the first case in which the labels are directly suing an ISP for copyright infringement. Their argument, similar to the "inducement" rule that the US courts made up (it's not actually in any US law) is that Eircom was actively encouraging piracy. In the case, they used internal emails from Eircom execs where some execs jokingly talked about how piracy was good for musicians because it would reduce money for rock stars to spend on cocaine. Apparently, obviously joking comments are being used to establish intent these days. Either way, this seems like a weak case for the record labels. Plenty of people encourage piracy. It's not going to go away if all those people shut up. The industry needs to stop freaking out over the fact that piracy happens, and start focusing on actual solutions in the market.

Filed Under: copyright, ireland, isps, liability
Companies: eircom, ifpi

Lawyer Who Sues Yelp Admits He Had No Idea About Section 230 Safe Harbors

from the great-moments-in-lawyering dept

Last week, we wrote about a defamation lawsuit over a review on Yelp, which seemed to backfire -- bringing a lot more attention to the negative review than if left alone. That case actually was settled soon after, but yet another defamation lawsuit has been filed by yet another person -- this time a dentist -- over a negative review. There are a few things worth commenting on about this lawsuit, but the big one that caught my attention is that the lawsuit was filed both against the couple who wrote the review... and against Yelp.

Now, as pretty much everyone knows around here, filing against Yelp is a big no-no. Yelp is clearly protected by section 230 safe harbors that make third party service providers immune from liability for actions of their users. This is pretty widely known among anyone involved in anything having to do with internet law... but was not known by the lawyer who filed the suit. In fact, the lawyer admits in the article above that he "wasn't aware" of the law and will probably drop the suit against Yelp now that he knows about it. But, it certainly raises questions about the lawyer if he was totally unaware of a key piece of internet legislation before filing such a lawsuit.

Then, there's the bizarre response from the dentist, replying to the point that Yelp lets the service providers directly contact those who write negative reviews to try to clear up the problem. The dentist says: "I would be very upset and would not know what to say to them." Fascinating. So, rather than talking it out as adults and clearing up any misunderstanding (and from the sound of it, it was a basic misunderstanding), she jumps straight to the lawsuit stage? She doesn't know what to say to them, but has no problem dumping a lawsuit on them. Isn't America great?

Filed Under: liability, section 230
Companies: yelp

Turns Out You Can't Sue SexSearch.com If The Girl You Met Via It Is Underage

from the well-that-makes-sense dept

Another day, another case where someone tried to blame a website for the actions of its users. In this case, a guy used the website SexSearch (seriously) to find someone to have sex with (ah, the internet...). The woman he met claimed in her profile that she was 18 years old. In reality, she was apparently only 14 -- and the guy was eventually brought up on statutory rape charges. In turn, he sued SexSearch, claiming that the site had a responsibility to verify the ages of its users -- something he failed to do himself. After a district court ruling tossed out the lawsuit, an appeals court has also tossed out the lawsuit, noting that none of the various 14 claims the guy brought against the site seemed to hold up under scrutiny. Basically, as the judge in the district court noted: "Plaintiff clearly had the ability to confirm Jane Roe’s age when he met with her in person, before they had sex, yet failed to do so." Thus, it's pretty difficult for him to then claim that it was the website's responsibility to accurately verify the age of participants.

Still, as Eric Goldman notes in the link above, the appeals court differed with the lower court on one point: saying that it wasn't dismissing the case for section 230 safe harbor reasons -- which ordinarily protect a service provider from the actions of its users. The lower court felt that 230 applied, but the appeals court feared that such a ruling would extend the coverage of section 230 "potentially abrogating all state- or common-law causes of action brought against interactive Internet services." I'm not sure I agree with that at all. No one is saying that safe harbors get service providers off the hook for illegal activities they perform. The point is that they should not be responsible for illegal actions performed by their users.

Filed Under: liability, service providers
Companies: sexsearch

Vietnam Continues Online Censorship; Outlaws 'Subversive' Blogs; Puts Liability On ISPs

from the define-subversive dept

Vietnam has a long history of online censorship and suppression of dissent. Back in 2002, a law was put in place requiring registration with the government before creating a website, and soon after that there were reports of arrests of people for putting "questionable" material online. Given that, it's hardly surprising to find out that the country has now officially banned "subversive" blogs. Of course, I'm sure the definition of subversive is left open to whoever is enforcing the law. But what's really bad about this law, is that it puts the liability on internet service providers -- saying that they'll be held responsible for any subversive blogs that are hosted by them. It's not entirely clear how this will impact foreign blog hosting companies, but it can't be a good thing. Apparently, the Vietnamese government is specifically planning to talk to Yahoo and Google to get them to "cooperate" in "creating the best and healthiest environment for bloggers." There's been plenty of controversy for both Yahoo and Google for how they've dealt with government censorship in China, so the last thing they need is another such controversy.

Filed Under: blogs, censorship, liability, vietnam

Court Says Yahoo And Google Aren't Liable For Gambling Ads

from the thank-you-section-230 dept

It's been really weird to see various politicians in the US go after online gambling in a variety of questionable ways, from Kentucky's attempt to seize domain names to the federal government forcing banks to block financial transactions for any gambling site. But one of the oddest moves has been to go after any publication that allowed online gambling ads to show up on their website. More than four years ago a bunch of websites, including Yahoo and Google were sued for allowing gambling ads to show up on searches. The two big search engines eventually settled with the federal government to try to block out gambling ads, but this particular lawsuit, based on California state law, continued.

It took a while, but a court has finally ruled that the search engines are protected by section 230 of the CDA, and they aren't responsible for ads posted by users -- even if they happen to get through the filters that Google and Yahoo set up to try to prevent gambling ads. There are a few important points to note here: (1) Just because the site is getting paid for the content, does not mean that section 230 safe harbors don't apply. We often hear people say that if a company is making money they must lose the safe harbors. That's simply not true, (2) Just because the search engines proactively try to filter out the content, they don't lose the safe harbors either. In fact, in this case the judge seems even more sympathetic because of that. There's a misconception out there among many that if you do meddle in the content at all, you give up your safe harbors. Again, that's not true.

Filed Under: ads, gambling ads, liability, section 230
Companies: google, yahoo

Is It McDonald's Responsibility To Stop Nude Photos From Getting Online?

from the questions,-questions,-questions dept

I originally saw this story Sunday night, about a guy suing McDonald's over naked photos of his wife showing up online after he accidentally left his phone (which contained the photos) at a McDonald's. I didn't write anything up because, while the story is attention-getting, there didn't seem to be much to say about it. However, we've had more people submitting it than just about any story I've ever seen -- so apparently folks think it's worth discussing here.

One point raised by numerous submitters is the question of liability. The guy is suing McDonald's specifically, along with various employees from the franchise where he left his phone. However, it's unclear why this should be McDonald's responsibility specifically. If the guy had left the phone on a bus, would it have been the bus company's liability? It seems like yet another example of something I've referred to as a Steve Dallas lawsuit, named after the character in the old comic strip Bloom County, who once suggested that a paparazzi photographer who was beat up by a celebrity (I think it was Sean Penn in the comic strip) sue camera-maker Nikon, since that was the company with the most money -- despite it not really being involved. The same thing seems to be at work here. The guy is suing McDonald's for $3 million.

Yes, I'm quite sure it sucks to have discovered his wife's naked photos online, and I'm sure it was embarrassing. But, isn't part of the problem the guy's own fault for (a) not protecting the content on his phone and (b) forgetting the phone in the first place? Shouldn't he take some responsibility for his actions, rather than suing a company that basically had nothing to do with the issue (other than being the place where the guy carelessly lost his phone) for $3 million?

Filed Under: liability, nude photos, responsibility, steve dallas
Companies: mcdonalds

Should It Be Illegal To Sell A Keylogger? Or Just To Use It?

from the might-be-pushing-the-boundaries dept

A court has issued an injunction temporarily banning the sale of a keylogger product called RemoteSpy. The ruling probably makes sense under the current FTC law, but it does raise some questions about whether it really makes sense to ban the sale of such a program, versus just the use of one. I can certainly understand why you might want to ban the sale of such programs, because if they're sold, they're perhaps more likely to be used. However, it still seems wrong to make it illegal to sell some software because that software can be used for illegal activities. Shouldn't the liability belong to those who actually use the software for illegal purposes?

Filed Under: keylogger, legality, liability

French Recording Industry Sues SourceForge For Hosting Open Source P2P

from the yikes dept

It would appear that Société civile des Producteurs de Phonogrammes en France (SPPF), a group that represents French record labels, is now trying to sue a bunch of non-French file sharing applications, as well as SourceForge. This brings up a lot of different issues, so let's break them out one by one.

• This lawsuit came about thanks to a ruling in a French court over how to interpret a French law. SPPF contends that French law says that any application that allows unauthorized file sharing is illegal. However, what was unclear, was whether or not this law could be applied to companies outside of France. The recent ruling found that, indeed, it's acceptable to extend French laws beyond its borders. This should be seen as hugely problematic just from a jurisdiction standpoint. It's difficult to see how France can claim that its laws should apply to companies entirely outside of France.
• Now that it's been allowed, SPPF is suing three companies who offer software: Vuze, Limewire and Morpheus. What's troubling is that even beyond an "inducement" standard, SPPF seems to be basing the lawsuits on the idea that if your software allows any unauthorized copying, then the software itself is illegal. Say goodbye to FTP and, well, the entire internet next.
• Finally, and most bizarrely, SPPF is also suing SourceForge, which is just a hosting platform for open source developers. The problem there (according to SPPF) is that SourceForge hosts the open source Shareaza file sharing app. It would appear that SPPF did so little research in figuring out who to sue, that it seems to think SourceForge is somehow responsible for Shareaza, rather than just hosting it.

Hopefully, the courts will come to their senses and realize, on all three of these issues, that the SPPF is out of line. But given the way some courts (especially in France) have ruled in the past, that seems unlikely.

Filed Under: file sharing, france, lawsuits, liability
Companies: limewire, morpheus, sourceforge, sppf, vuze

Politicians Still Trying To Outlaw Being A Jerk

from the it's-not-going-to-work dept

Reader eoinmonty writes in to let us know that Irish politicians are pressuring mobile phone companies to stop mobile phone bullying, and saying that if the companies can't do so, they'll be forced to put in place laws that require them to stop bullying. The whole thing is rather ridiculous, and, as one phone company rep accurately pointed out: "It is unrealistic and unfair to expect mobile phone operators to solve what is a broader societal problem." Indeed. It seems as if politicians think that somehow the mobile operators can just snap their fingers and stop undesired activity. They can't. And, to let them in on a little secret: even passing a law won't do much to help. People are going to be bullies -- and passing a law or asking the mobile phone companies to hold back the tide won't do much to stop them.

Filed Under: bullying, cyberbullying, ireland, liability, responsibility