Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

Terms of Service and Your Copyrights

Thursday, 26 January, 2012 07:52 Written by Scott Nyman 3 Comments

Upon logging into my Gmail this morning, a mandatory step in my daily routine, I noticed an alert that Google is consolidating the privacy policies and terms of service for all of its various online offerings. Being in the business of law, I felt compelled to read through the changes to see how Google will handle managing information about a user.

For those that are unaware, a privacy policy generally comprises a statement from a company regarding the handling of a user’s personally identifying information. The privacy policy is typically accompanied by a terms of service, which sets out the rules a user must abide by to gain access to a service. The terms of service may often define the legal relationship between a user and a service provider, the ways in which the service may be used, and the procedure to follow in the event the terms are violated.

Of course, being an intellectual property attorney, I immediately look to see how the rights relating to user owned copyrights and other IP is handled. Google’s terms of service reads:

Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

Sounds amazing, right? But, if you read on…

When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps).

So, if a user posts one of his or her copyrighted materials on onc of Google’s services, the user in effect grants Google a non-revocable license to use the material, essentially, how they see fit, for “operating, promoting, and improving service, and develop new services,” a pretty broad group of categories.

This peaked my interest as to how a user’s copyrighted materials are handled on other popular social sites, such as Facebook.  Again, things start out rosy:

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings.

 But the devil is in the details:

For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).

To my surprise, Facebook seems to make less of a grab on your copyrighted materials than Google. Of concern, Facebook claims the right to transfer and sub-license your content. However, it appears that any and all of Facebook’s rights in your content ends upon deletion of the content from Facebook’s system by the copyright holder and those with whom the content has been shared.

As a little bonus, section 5.6 of Facebook’s terms of service states, “You will not use our copyrights or trademarks (including Facebook, the Facebook and F Logos, FB, Face, Poke, Wall and 32665), or any confusingly similar marks, without our written permission.” So, allegedly, the word “face” is now owned by Facebook. If this turns out like the Superbowl-”Big Game” situation, we may have to start referring to our faces as our “head fronts.”

Facebook Settles Trademark Infringement Lawsuit With Lamebook

Friday, 02 September, 2011 16:39 Written by Mark Malek 0 Comments

By: Mark R. Malek

Many of you may recall that last November I wrote an article about how Facebook was on the receiving end of a trademark lawsuit wherein Lamebook asked the court to determine that Lamebook was not infringing the Facebook mark and that Lamebook was a parody.  As expected, this case has now settled (source).

In the settlement, Lamebook will be able to continue to use their website, and there is no danger to Facebook losing their trademarks.  Sounds fair enough, right?  WRONG!  In this particular case, Facebook lost, Lamebook won, and all the attorneys involved in the case (where I am sure that the bill was several hundred thousand dollars combined) also won.  Some would say that Facebook had nothing to lose.  In this case, however, it was proven that the Facebook’s litigation tactics didn’t work.

Every time that a trademark owner sends out a “cease and desist” notice, they expose themselves to the filing of a lawsuit.  The reason is that these cease and desist notices generally come with some threat of litigation.  The threat of litigation itself is enough to raise a “case or controversy” which the court can hear.  As you know, we have reported several of the Facebook trademark cases here on TacticalIP.com.  Check out our stories here, here, here, here, and here.  It is clear that Facebook vigorously enforces their trademark, and I cannot blame them for that, but sometimes, it is my opinion that their tactics are a little over the top.

Although it probably cost Lamebook a fortune to get to this point, they just proved to the world that Facebook does not own the exclusive rights to the words “Face” and “Book.”  It is ok to make fun of Facebook.  The most important thing about the case is that Lamebook gets to stay in business.  The litigation costs for Facebook are really not a factor.  If they have to spend a few hundred thousand dollars, or even millions, to protect their trademarks, then it is worth every dime.  They have very valuable trademarks.  I think they just need a little policing to make sure they don’t cross over into the trademark bully camp.

 

Facebook v. Shagbook

Friday, 05 August, 2011 14:11 Written by Rene Dial 0 Comments
By: Rene Dial
 
We have seen this time and time again as companies try to use some variation of the Facebook name to bolster their websites.

 Facebook continues to defend the Facebook trademark from various porn and dating websites trying to cash in on the popularity of the social network.  Most of these companies either use “face” or “book” or some variation in their name. 

Another method websites are using to cash in on the Facebook mark is by using the most common typos known as “typosquatting.” Typosquatting is when someone attempts to type Facebook in their browser and mistypes the name taking them to a website with the domain name that is using the typo.  Most recently Facebook filed suit against 25 domain owners for typosquatting using domain names such as facebobk.com, facemook.com, wwwfacefook.com, ffacebook.com and faecbook.com.  

On June 1, 2011 Facebook filed a Notice of Opposition with the United States Patent and Trademark office to prevent registration of a trademark for Shagbook.  Facebook’s opposition claims a likelihood of confusion and dilution of the Facebook trademark. 

Shagbook, like the name suggests, is an online adult dating and adult social networking website.  The term dating is used very loosley here.  A review of their website (research purposes only) suggests as to why they are the best “no strings attached matchmaking service. Below is a copy of paragraph 15 found on page 4 of the Notice of Opposition. Follow the link for a complete copy of the Notice of Opposition found on Scribd.com. 

According to the Lanham Act “§ 43 (15 U.S.C. § 1125). False designations of origin; false description or representation

 (a) (1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which—

(A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or”    

Lets see, if Facebook is a social networking site and Shagbook is kind of a social networking site except for the “shag” part. I think the Gods will be in Facebook’s favor.  There is definately some confusion or at least dilution of the Facebook mark there. When I think of the term “book” used with any other word I don’t think of the internet unless its in conjunction with Facebook or I am actually trying to buy a book on the internet.  When I get an update on this suit I will fill you in. 

Have an awesome weekend!

Facebook Patents Giving Gifts And Displaying Assets

Saturday, 04 June, 2011 05:28 Written by Aaron Thalwitzer 0 Comments

Aaron Thalwitzer

Facebook is asking for trouble with this patent. Facebook can now prevent its competitors from “giving gifts and displaying assets in a social network environment.” For this article to work, please assume Facebook has a competitor — maybe World of Warcraft?

So let’s say you give your wife a Titansteel Destroyer in WoW, and then she posts about it on, um, MySpace (?). I feel icky suggesting that that might happen. Stay with me! So wifeysays, “My awesome hunky man gave me a cool polearm and now I don’t have to pay as many Chinese gold farmers! True love!” Does this infringe on Facebook’s patent?

No. But let’s say you listed your Titansteel Destroyer as an “asset” on Facebook. Then you “gifted” it to wifey and digitally “transferred” it on Facebook (Editor’s Note: “gift” is still not a verb). Wifey’s page now shows that Hubby gave her a Titansteel Destroyer. All this probably transpires in a couple of clicks, or automatically when you buy something on Amazon or elsewhere.

Here’s a summary of the invention:

A method for representing ownership of an asset in a social network environment, the method comprising: receiving a request from a first user of the social network environment to purchase the asset for a second user; recording information about a purchase of the asset from a vendor; associating, by a server for the social networking environment, the purchased asset with a profile of the second user; sending for display to a viewing user an association between the purchased asset and the second user on a feed display page; sending for display to the viewing user, in connection with the association between the purchased asset and the second user, information indicating that a third user, with whom the viewing user has established a connection in the social network, owns the asset, and information including a name of the first user who gave the asset to the second user, on the feed display page.

The type of asset could certainly be a Titansteel Destroyer, because included in the dependent claims include real, digital, or virtual assets. The asset transferring can be displayed on Web pages and icons, and the viewer can be extended to the giver, the recipient, and anyone connected to either of them. For you Winkelvi out there, the monetization comes in to play because the transfer will display a link from the merchant (e.g., Amazon). Also, it further extends Facebook’s tendrils into it’s users lives, which is, of course, just what users want. For utes these days, things don’t happen until they’ve been displayed and commented upon on Facebook. Existing and future competitors will face yet another challenge when trying to lure people to their social network.

*I have never played WoW, but virtual economies fascinate me.

Dysentery and Typhoid make a comeback – Zynga sued for use of “Oregon Trail”

Sunday, 22 May, 2011 17:06 Written by Scott Nyman 0 Comments

Scott Nyman

 

When I was growing up, our family has an Apple II+ computer. That’s right, we were pretty advanced. I was fully equipped with a software library of state-of-the-art games to be fed into the double stacked 5.25” high density floppy drives. Of all those games, the ones I remember most include the Stickybear series (education games that apparently no one else seems to remember) and “The Oregon Trail.”

The plot to “The Oregon Trail” is simple, get to Oregon without dying. However, along the way, your caravan is bombarded with starvation, disease, and rivers (never float the ox). I’m not entirely sure what dysentery or typhoid are, but from my experiences with “The Oregon Trail,” I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.

The popularity of “The Oregon Trail” has continued on over the years. There has been a sequel. Versions have been created for the iPhone, Xbox Live for Windows Phone 7, Nintendo DS, and various websites. Most recently, the game has been brought to Facebook via veteran game studio Zynga, titled “Frontierville’s Oregon Trail.”

The Learning Company, owners of the “THE OREGON TRAIL” trademark, have recently filed suit against Zynga for infringement and dilution of its mark. Notably, the complaint filed by The Learning Company, in paragraph 9, states, “Zynga’s use of ‘OREGON TRAIL’ is likely to cause confusion among consumers, to dilute and tarnish the distinctive quality of The Oregon Trail Mark, and to cause irreparable harm to The Learning Company’s valuable goodwill.”

More enjoyably, paragraph 3 of the complaint states, “Designed to sharpen decision making skills and a sense of responsibility, THE OREGON TRAIL has been used by over 60% of 3rd-5th grade teachers and 40% of 6th-8th grade teachers nationwide to teach students about the perils of the frontier period in American history.”

Admittably, “The Oregon Trail” has taught me to never float the ox and attempt to ford an impassable river. Also, I have learned to watch out for snakebites. Though, to The Learning Company’s credit, I have learned that the path from St. Louis to Oregon is indeed perilous. However, I believe most of the perils that exist today are related to getting out of St. Louis with your life and wallet.

 

Additional reading:

Complaint

Ars Technica

 

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