Social Media and the Law Talk at The Greenhouse Innovation Hub

Hey everyone be sure to sign up for a seat at my talk next week on Social Media and the Law. If you missed How to Create a Social Media Policy with Social Media Club Hawaii last week or you made it and still have questions this is a good talk for you:

The details are as follows:

• What: Social Media and the Law Talk
• Description: a discussion of the laws that affect social media use, from defamation to trademark infringement, find out some of the legal landmines that may alter your perception of using social media.  This talk is particularly geared for small business owners, start-ups, and social media marketers.
• Date: Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
• Where: The Greenhouse Innovation Hub in Kaka’ako – 685 Auahi Street
• Time: 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.
• Price: $20.00, includes all materials

For more information and ticket purchase please click here.

See you then!

-RKH

Social Media and the Law, as well as other Fun Legal Info

Well, it’s amazing isn’t it? The month of January of 2012 is almost done and so much has already happened. Here are some interesting social media and the law news that I found, as well as some other fun pieces to carry you over for the day until tomorrow’s Draw the Law.

Google and Privacy Concerns (this well continue to be an issue for 2012 for all Social Media)

Have you noticed that Goolge is making some major pushes lately?  Well come March 1 the search engine plans on doing a turnabout and begin combining information it collects about the user from various sites/services into a single profile. Definitely a privacy issue brewing, especially when the privacy officer has to issue statements. Click: Google to merge user data across its services – CNN.com You can also read the lengthy notification, which you keep bypassing when you log onto your Google+ page.

GPS = 4th Amendment “Search” as Determined by SCOTUS

For all of you interested in criminal law, like Marcus Landsberg criminal lawyer extraordinaire, notice that the Supreme Court- GPS Tracking Is Illegal Without Warrant. Basically, SCOTUS feels that the use of a GPS Tracking device is a “search” for the purposes of the 4th Amendment, thus cops must get a warrant.

Mutant Toys or Mutant Dolls? Yes, it Matters

This was a great listen if you love comic books and would like to theorize that certain superheroes are not human. Basically, the point of this podcast: Mutant Rights – Radiolab, was showing the importance of the word “doll” versus “toy” – you may not think it means much, but if you are an IP attorney and have an import business getting a cheaper rate for your action figures is a must and it all boils down to if a mutant is a human or not.

Department of Homeland Security Following Facebook Posts

Earlier this month DHS released a document stating it is monitoring social media and news sites. They cited federal law that they have to “provide situational awareness” to federal, state, local and tribal governments. You can read more about this here: DHS watching social media, news sites | Greeley Gazette.

NLRB Finds Certain Arbitration Clauses Violate Labor Laws

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has determined that mandatory arbitration agreements that prevent employees from joining together to pursue employment-related legal claims in any forum, whether in arbitration or in court violate federal labor laws. Check that announcement here: Board finds that certain mandatory arbitration agreements violate federal labor law.

Local Startup and Social Media Infromation

For you startup lovers, don’t forget tomorrow night will be Startup Hawaii kickoff. For more information, check it out here: Startup America Comes to Hawaii | Aloha StartUps. It will be at Bar 35 downtown. Definitely come on down if you started or are going to start a business!

Also check back at Alohastartups.com as I will be writing some future posts talking about Hawaii’s new legal non-profit aimed at helping entrepreneurs and startups, Business Law Corp. (businesslawcorps.org). I hope to get some interviews with the founders soon!

Finally, clear sometime in February as I will be getting down with Social Media and the Law as I will be trying to schedule a talk at The Greenhouse Innovation Hub and will be a panelists at Social Media Club Hawaii’s Creating a social media policy for business – what, how and when? event at Amuse Wine Bar on Feb. 21st. Hope to see you there!

Who Owns a Twitter Account? Are Bloggers Journalists? What about CAN-SPAM?

Twitter is a powerful tool to communicate, and thus now very valuable, but the question is who owns that value?

Well, it’s 2012, but social media is still around and as you are trying to figure out how Timeline works on Facebook these are some of the interesting social media and the law stories that have cropped up:

Item #1: Who Owns a Twitter account?

A former employee is being sued by his South-Carolina based company. For? Taking their twitter account. Noah Kravitz of Oakland, CA is being sued by PhoneDog, a mobile phone news site company for multiple claims pertaining to his act of switching a Twitter account used by him for the company. This account had amassed a following of 17,000 followers, and PhoneDog is seeking damages of $2.50 per follower over eight months for a total of $340,000.

Based on the couple of articles I read on this story the only thing clear is that the terms agreement surrounding the account were unclear. As more and more companies continue to see social media as a valuable tool and resource and are actually having workers use them the reality is that we will see more lawsuits arise. I think the valuable lesson here is to have a social media policy, a worker agreement for social media marketers, and transfer procedures in cases of ending events, like termination. Without agreements in place you will be left at the mercy of a court.

You can read more about the situation in this New York Times article.

Item #2: Bloggers are NOT Journalists.

BLOGGERS PAY ATTENTION! You may think you dig up the facts, do solid research, and ask serious questions, but you may have to face the fact that courts may not see your as a journalist. Why is that important? In many states there are media shield laws. For example, Oregon has such a law.

Blogger Crystal Cox sought to defend herself from investment firm Obsidian Finance Group against a $10 million lawsuit for defamation. The blogger lost the case even though she argued that she was an “investigative blogger.” The judge disagreed because she was not employed by some official media entity, and therefore she could not take advantage of Oregon’s media shield law. She lost and the judgment against her was for $2.5 million.

I am not sure if this had any effect, but just from casual observation and what I am told from litigators and trial attorneys is that pro se (representing yourself) litigants often lose, and often lose badly.  So that may have been a factor. However, what is clear is that just blogging and acting like a journalist is not enough. For more info read this article from Seattle Weekly.

Item #3: Optimal Social Media Marketing Plans Can Help you Comply with CAN-SPAM Act

I ran across this post, “How to Make Optimum Use of Social Media Platforms for Marketing Your Business” while flipping through my Zite app on my IPad. If you are a small business like me and are trying to get a handle on this thing called social media you know it isn’t always easy making a connection via Twitter, Facebook, or even your blog. So I really appreciated the tips it gave in this short post.

However, when the biggest things that help me to help you (via this article) is that last section, “Automation doesn’t turn out to be Helpful Always” – why? Well, I did a Law Lunch with The Greenhouse Innovation Hub back in December where I talked about complying with the CAN-SPAM Act.  It seems that good marketing mirrors what CAN-SPAM Act is trying to curb namely:

Whenever you are searching for consumers, you need to strike real conversations and do not spam their inbox with auto-generated mails.  This can even turn a potential customer away from you.  It is necessary that you engage in regular conversations with qualified leads.

So do yourself a favor and stop relying on spam and do real conversations and follow-ups. In addition, make sure you are complying with the other requirements of CAN-SPAM Act (because it does not apply just to bulk e-mails) when sending that personal touch e-mail.

Have a great first work week of 2012! Lookout for Draw the Law next week. If you can’t wait to see my doodles “Subscribe” today!

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*Disclaimer:  This post discusses general legal issues, but does not constitute legal advice in any respect.  No reader should act or refrain from acting based on information contained herein without seeking the advice of counsel in the relevant jurisdiction.  Ryan K. Hew, Attorney At Law, LLLC expressly disclaims all liability in respect to any actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this post.