The long-running case of Solers, Inc. v. Doe in the District of Columbia raises the interesting dilemma of balancing significant free speech rights with the interest of an alleged "victim" to pursue claims against an alleged anonymous defamer.  Usually, this issue arises in the context of an online message board poster's public diatribe against someone or something, made under a pseudonym.  The alleged victim then sues the poster under the name "John Doe" and immediately subpoenas the web site host or publisher to try to discover the real identity of the poster.  Thus far, courts have acknowledged the transcendental importance of free speech and, for the most part, blocked disclosure of the posters' identities.  A collection of some of those cases is described here.  In Solers, there is a twist.  An informant ("whistleblower") made a private report to the SIIA via a piracy reporting link on the SIIA's web site, and Solers subsequently embarked on a quest to unmask that informant.  The latest appellate ruling in the case is a mixed bag for Solers, establishing significant hurdles that make it unlikely for Solers to acquire the identity of the informant, but giving Solers one more shot to try.  More significantly, the decision adds to a body of case law addressing when an alleged claim of wrongdoing may overcome the First Amendment right to make anonymous speech.

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On June 13th, Facebook will begin implementing a new policy that allows trademark owners to preemptively block others from using their registered trademarks as user names on its site.  Under the new policy trademark owners may record their trademarks with Facebook in order to prevent use of the marks by third parties. This new policy appears to supplement the existing policy which allows trademark owners to request Facebook remove trademarked user names that already illegally be used by a third party.

It's nice to see Facebook jump in here to take prempetive action against trademark abuse.  Facebook, Twitter and other social network sites have long been a haven for trademark abuse and misuse. Perhaps others will now follow Facebook's lead and take similar action.  Those who own trademarks would be wise to preemptively record their registered word marks with Facebook in advance of the June 13th policy change.

So what's the takeaway from the Barnes v. Yahoo, Inc. case?  This is the case decided this month involving the dumped boyfriend who posted nude pictures of his ex on Yahoo and impersonated her in various Yahoo chat rooms suggesting she's ready for action.  He also posted her contact information.  Some people have a hard time moving on.  After a slew of not-so-gentleman callers, Barnes contacted Yahoo in accordance with their policies to request removal of the information.  Barnes asserts she received a phone call from Yahoo's "Director of Communications" telling her that she would "personally walk [Barnes's request] over to the division responsible for stopping unauthorized profiles and they would take care of it."  According to Barnes, it didn't happen.  After a few more months, Barnes sued Yahoo.  Yahoo asserted that it is immune, under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, from any liability for its actions, or lack of action, relating to Barnes. 

Barnes sued under two legal theories.  But the court gave credence to only one, promissory estoppel, which basically alleges that Yahoo made a promise (to remove the offensive content) which Barnes relied on to her detriment.  The court did not accept that Section 230 of the CDA means that Yahoo could not liable to Barnes under a promissory estoppel theory.More...

According to Wikipedia, “Teamwork is a joint action by two or more people or a group, in which each person contributes with different skills...to achieve common goals.” Companies are founded on teamwork but often employees get caught up in the day to day duties of their jobs and forget that they are an integral part of a team. This is especially true when employees are allowed to purchase their own software without accountability.   I am not suggesting that companies engage in team building exercises, retreats or motivational speakers to fix the problem.  What I am suggesting is that companies create their own Software Management Team.

In past blogs, I have emphasized the importance of centralizing software purchases.  Certainly this is important, but we must take a step back and look at the bigger picture.  Every company should have a Software Management Team in place.  Representatives from Information Technology, Accounting, Purchasing, Legal, Human Resources should be included.  The heads of individual business units should also be present.  Each of these departments has a stake in the game and should not be left out when managing a company’s software assets.

Once a company has designated at least one person from each of these departments to be part of the team, the team should convene and set goals and directives.  Each department will be individually responsible to the team.  Goals may vary within each company but definitely should include a software audit.  IT will likely be responsible for selection and deployment of the audit tool.  After the results are analyzed, Accounting may advise as to an appropriate budget for software purchases for each department. Department heads certainly will want to have input.  The Legal department should draft User Policies and Procedures for employees to follow.  And Human Resources will need to communicate the plan to company employees and take corrective action if necessary.More...

Creative Edge Master Shop of Fairfield, Iowa, and its affiliate, Flex Kits LLC, were recently targeted by SIIA and five of its member software companies, following a confidential tip that Creative Edge and Flex Kits were using illegally-installed (unlicensed) copies of software in their business operations.  A lawsuit was filed after the alleged infringers failed to resolve the case through SIIA’s voluntary audit program.  It has now been announced that the case has settled.  In addition to requiring Creative Edge and Flex Kits to update their licenses to adequately cover the software use, and to implement new internal compliance measure, the settlement included a “six figure payment” by Creative Edge to SIIA and its members, according to a press release announcing the settlement.  

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I love this time of year:  Spring has sprung, new software and new content products are out in the marketplace, and of course the 2009 NFL Draft was conducted!  But for the time being I must hold off my dreams of the Redskins XLIV Super Bowl glory and concentrate on currently bigger issues...  Bigger issues like how to manage all these new license agreements that come with new content and software products.  Yes, I know my thoughts are a little off for actually thinking about license agreements, but call me crazy.

As I have previously mentioned in an earlier blog about SaaS in terms of managing compliance and the license; the management is not easy, not for the publisher or the buyer.  The same difficulties that the SaaS model faces of compliance and management, can be applied to when content comes into an organization.  Challenges pop up when a buyer has to properly distribute a PDF of a professional journal internally within the organization without violating any terms of the agreement, while at the same time trying to make sure that same professional journal is actually being read (used) in order to justify the price tag that came with its license agreement.  Management is not easy. 

Some tactics that an organization may consider when trying to be an effective manager of licenses within the organization is to make sure there are effective policies and procedures in place revolving around both software and content procurement and management.  End users within an organization must have the proper knowledge on how to properly procure software and/or content within the organization, this will help to provide some control of these assets once in the organization.  A properly enforced copyright management plan is a necessity for any organization to effectively manage their rights not only for compliance reasons, but for also having the knowledge of how much the assets are used.  The goal of any organization should be to maintain compliance while also maintaining their bottom line by only buying software and/or content that they truly need and use.

A buyer and publisher may want to have a dialog about how to manage licenses for compliance.  This dialog could lend itself well to all parties involved in order to prevent unlawful use.  However, at the end of the day the responsibility is on the buyer to make sure they are only buying what they need, and nothing more.  Otherwise, like an NFL Owner at the Draft the buyer better hope that just signed contract is worth the money!

In one of the more significant statements against piracy in recent memory, four founders of one of the world's most notorious "pirate" sites, the Pirate Bay web site created in Sweden, were sentenced on Friday to a year in prison and ordered to pay a $3.6 million fine by a Swedish court.  Sweden had long been considered somewhat of a "safe haven" for Internet pirates to operate in, and is known for a culture (especially among its younger citizens) that not only widely accepted, but promoted, piracy of copyrighted materials.  There is even a political party in Sweden, the "Pirate Party," whose primary agenda is making copyrighted materials freely available.  Copyright owners in the United States and other countries, along with their governments, had been working with the Swedish government to step up enforcement of copyright laws and change the perception of Sweden as a lawless territory when it comes to intellectual property.

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Organizations that centralize their software purchases stand a much better chance of being software compliant than those that do not have a formal process in place.  This is true for small and large organizations alike but certainly the risk of non-compliance increases as the size of the organization does.

The advantages of centralizing software acquisition cannot be overstated.  For those organizations that do not centralize their purchases, they run the risk of being either underlicensed or overlicensed.  After performing a software audit, many organizations have found that they are both underlicensed for some software titles and overlicensed for others.

Some organizations that are underlicensed have found themselves in the middle of an enforcement audit or lawsuit simply because the IT department did not have control over the software their employees were purchasing and using on a daily basis.  Organizations that are the target of these types of investigations run the risk of monetary fines and negative publicity. More...

SIIA and other organizations have well documented the problem of copyright infringement on auction and resale sites such as eBay, Amazon, Craigslist, iOffer and other similar sites.  SIIA and its members monitor these sites and perform test purchases looking for infringing content, and sometimes file lawsuits against the offending sellers.  The tide of these cases has not stemmed in 2009, as the need to maintain an effective deterrent presence continues -- both to protect the intellectual property interest of its members, and to protect their consumers against fraudulent attempts to pass off substandard goods as the "real thing."

SIIA has settled dozens of cases in the past year on behalf of its software and content members, some of which will be described in an upcoming SIIA press release.  The results have ranged from substantial financial penalties, to seller bankruptcies, and in some cases even jail time.  Dozens of more cases are on the way.  In tandem with SIIA's other educational efforts, the litigation programs aim to discourage careless or illegitimate online sellers attempting to make a "quick buck" by reselling copyrighted works (often obtained from unknown or suspicious sources), and encourage buyers only to use known, verified sites and sellers to make purchases.

Who knew that The Jeffersons had predicted the future with the theme song “Movin’ On Up”, but it looks like they nailed it on the head.  Technology is now up in the “clouds”. 

Cloud computing, by its most basic definition, is a computing environment where software and data are accessed over a network (e.g. the Internet), rather than stored on a local desktop or server.  With this model, users have the feel of software applications and data residing in the “clouds.” By more technical definition, the network of servers and connections is collectively known as “the cloud.” Computing at the scale of the cloud allows users to access supercomputer-level power. Using a thin client or other access point, like an iPhone, BlackBerry or laptop, users can reach into the cloud for resources as they need them. Other similar terms often used to refer to the cloud computing model are “on-demand computing,” and “Software as a Service,” or “SaaS.”More...