In today’s fascination with social media and posting videos featuring individuals performing all sorts of things, copyright laws have become a hot topic. For example, log on to YouTube and there are millions of hopeful stars doing their version of their favorite artist’s song. As flattering as this may be, is it a copyright infringement? […]
Widerman Malek Law Blog
Social Media and Breaking the Law
Many businesses these days use social media to help reach customers. They post status updates on Facebook – they tweet sales and thoughts on Twitter. It’s working too! Customers love to keep up to date with what’s on sale, what discounts are being offered and special promotions. Customers especially love the interactive nature and informal […]
Facebook Privacy Notice – Fiction or Reality?
Every now and then someone posts a status update on his Facebook page that basically asserts his rights to his own content. Some of the posts may include language such as: “I assert all intellectual property rights to my Facebook data under articles L 111, 112 and 113. I declare these rights to apply to […]
Getting A Refund From The Patent Office If You Are Now A Small Entity
By: Mark R. Malek This concludes the series of articles that I have been writing on entity status in the United States Patent Office. The first article introduced the new micro-entity status. The next article gave some background information on what would happen if you claimed the wrong entity status before the USPTO, and the latest […]
You’ve Been Served, through Facebook?
We have seen Facebook grow from a small college networking site to a global social media giant in less than a decade. Facebook is used to connect friends and family and promote businesses. Now over one billion people a month are on Facebook. With over a billion people using Facebook as a communication channel, the […]
Employers Demanding Facebook Passwords from Job Seekers
Is it legal for employers to demand access to potential job seekers’ Facebook accounts? This is currently a hot debate topic across the country and here in the state of Florida. With the national unemployment rate at 7.9 % and Florida slightly worse off at an 8% unemployment rate, many job seekers are feeling pressured […]
Does Facebook Have Control Over Your IP Content?
Does Facebook have the right to use your photos without your permission? Are your intellectual property rights over personal photos and videos forfeited when posted to Facebook? I am going to address both of these questions separately. Let us start with the first question. Can Facebook use your photos without your consent? No. Facebook does […]
Facebook and the First Amendment
Jennifer O’Brien had been employed as a school teacher in Paterson, New Jersey for many years. In December 2010, O’Brien was assigned to teach the first grade. There were about 700 students in the school where she taught, and the student body consisted almost entirely of minority students, including African Americans and Latinos. […]
