Mark Your Calendar: Dec. 4th Digital Media Bootcamp for NYC Area Lawyers & Artists
Welcome to Socially Aware
Socially Aware is devoted to the law and business of social media, proactively addressing emerging issues and keeping our clients informed of new developments. We cover fields such as artificial intelligence, privacy and data security, Section 230, intellectual property, and much more.
- The Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts will be presenting an all-day “bootcamp” covering digital media and related legal issues on Thursday, December 4, 2014, at Morrison & Foerster LLP’s New York office. The courses will be directed to both attorneys and artists, and will... ›
Forced to Cyber-Spy: Court Rules Parents Can Be Held Negligent for Child’s Facebook Activity
By: Aaron P. Rubin
Are parents now liable for what their kids post to Facebook? According to a recent decision in the Georgia Court of Appeals, they are. The Georgia Court of Appeals held that the parents of a seventh-grade student could be found negligent for failing to... ›Facebook Dislikes Fake Likes
Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy phony Facebook “likes.” And those can go a long way toward making a small business owner’s dreams come true, right? Wrong, explains Facebook site integrity engineer Matt Jones in a recent post... ›- - Privacy
Big Data: Big Business, Big Privacy Issues
Big data is now big business. In recent years, due to the exponential growth of databases (spurred at least in part by social media and cloud storage) and of the capability of technology to undertake data analytics on a massive scale, organisations have started... › Monkey Selfie Redux
When we last examined the intellectual property issues raised by a self-portrait taken by a talented female Indonesian crested black macaque—popularly known as the “Monkey Selfie”—we concluded that there was unlikely to be any copyright protection in the work, under either U.S. law or... ›R.I.P.: The Facebook “Like” Gate
By: Anthony M. Ramirez
Do you still “like” me? Companies with Facebook Pages will find themselves asking that question of their followers over the next few weeks, as Facebook brings an end to the popular practice of offering discounts, exclusive content and other incentives in exchange for liking a Page.... ›Ninth Circuit to Reconsider the Curious Copyright Case Requiring YouTube to Take Down All Copies of Anti-Islamic Film
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
Earlier this year, Socially Aware noted a peculiar decision out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals holding that an actress owns a copyright interest in her five-second performance in a film and thus could demand the removal of all copies of the film... ›- - Privacy
New California Privacy Law Revisions Will Impact Website and Mobile App Operators With Users Under Age 18
By: Julie O'Neill
Last year, California made child-related revisions to its Online Privacy Protection Act that have ramifications even for websites and other online services that are not directed to children. The revision, “Privacy Rights for California Minors in the Digital World,” imposes obligations on any website,... › What’s in a Like?
By: Aaron P. Rubin
In the pre-Facebook era, the word “like” was primarily a verb (and an interjection sprinkled throughout valley girls’ conversations). Although you could have likes and dislikes in the sense of preferences, you could not give someone a like, claim to own a like or... ›Privacy in the Cloud: A Legal Framework for Moving Personal Data to the Cloud
For many companies, the main question about cloud computing is no longer whether to move their data to the “cloud,” but how they can accomplish this transition. Cloud (or Internet-based on-demand) computing involves a shift away from reliance on a company’s own local computing... ›