The latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here.
In this issue of Socially Aware, our Burton Award winning guide to the law and business of social media. In this edition, we discuss what a company can do to help protect the likes, followers, views, tweets and shares that constitute
Many of my clients ask how they can best ensure that their websites’ terms of use are enforceable. Is it really necessary to require the website’s users to check a box or click a button manifesting affirmative assent? In this portion of my video on website terms of use, I explain what the courts have
As a social media lawyer, I work closely with website operators and other clients to help reduce the risk of liability that can arise from doing business online. One of the key ways to minimize online legal risks is to use a carefully drafted online Terms of Use agreement. In my new video below, I
Today’s companies compete not only for dollars but also for likes, followers, views, tweets, comments and shares. “Social currency,” as some researchers call it, is becoming increasingly important and companies are investing heavily in building their social media fan bases. In some cases, this commitment of time, money and resources has resulted in staggering success. Coca-Cola, for example, has amassed over 96 million likes on its Facebook page and LEGO’s YouTube videos have been played over 2 billion times.
With such impressive statistics, there is no question that a company’s social media presence and the associated pages and profiles can be highly valuable business assets, providing an important means for disseminating content and connecting with customers. But how much control does a company really have over these social media assets? What recourse would be available if a social media platform decided to delete a company’s page or migrate its fans to another page?
The answer may be not very much. Over the past few years, courts have repeatedly found in favor of social media platforms in a number of cases challenging the platforms’ ability to delete or suspend accounts and to remove or relocate user content.
Legal Show-Downs on Social Media Take-Downs
In a recent California case, Lewis v. YouTube, LLC, the plaintiff Jan Lewis’s account was removed by YouTube due to allegations that she artificially inflated view counts in violation of YouTube’s Terms of Service. YouTube eventually restored Lewis’s account and videos but not the view counts or comments that her videos had generated prior to the account’s suspension.
Lewis sued YouTube for breach of contract, alleging that YouTube had deprived her of her reasonable expectations under the Terms of Service that her channel would be maintained and would continue to reflect the same number of views and comments. She sought damages as well as specific performance to compel YouTube to restore her account to its original condition.
The court first held that Lewis could not show damages due to the fact that the YouTube Terms of Service contained a limitation of liability provision that disclaimed liability for any omissions relating to content. The court also held that Lewis was not entitled to specific performance because there was nothing in the Terms of Service that required YouTube to maintain particular content or to display view counts or comments. Accordingly, the court affirmed dismissal of Lewis’s complaint.
In a similar case, Darnaa LLC v. Google, Inc., Darnaa, a singer, posted a music video on YouTube. Again, due to allegations of view count inflation, YouTube removed and relocated the video to a different URL, disclosing on the original page that the video had been removed for violating its Terms of Service. Darnaa sued for breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, interference with prospective economic advantage and defamation. In an email submitted with the complaint, Darnaa’s agent explained that she had launched several large campaigns (each costing $250,000 to $300,000) to promote the video and that the original link was already embedded in thousands of websites and blogs. Darnaa sought damages as well as an injunction to prevent YouTube from removing the video or changing its URL.
The court dismissed all of Darnaa’s claims because YouTube’s Terms of Service require lawsuits to be filed within one year and Darnaa had filed her case too late. In its discussion, however, the court made several interesting points. In considering whether YouTube’s Terms of Service were unconscionable, the court held that, although the terms are by nature a “contract of adhesion,” the level of procedural unconscionability was slight, since the plaintiff could have publicized her videos on a different website. Further, in ruling that the terms were not substantively unconscionable, the court pointed out that “[b]ecause YouTube offers its hosting services free of charge, it is reasonable for YouTube to retain broad discretion over [its] services.”
Although the court ultimately dismissed Darnaa’s claims based on the failure to timely file the suit, the decision was not a complete victory for YouTube. The court granted leave to amend to give Darnaa the opportunity to plead facts showing that she was entitled to equitable tolling of the contractual limitations period. Therefore, the court went on to consider whether Darnaa’s allegations were sufficient to state a claim. Among other things, the court held that YouTube’s Terms of Service were ambiguous regarding the platform’s rights to remove and relocate user videos in its sole discretion. Thus, the court further held that if Darnaa were able to amend the complaint to avoid the consequences of the failure to timely file, then the complaint would be sufficient to state a claim for breach of the contractual covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
The latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here.
In this issue of Socially Aware, our Burton Award-winning guide to the law and business of social media. In this edition, we offer tips for a successful—and legal—advertising campaign; we examine a New York State Appellate Division opinion significantly limiting
Courts have generally categorized online agreements into two types: “clickwrap” agreements and “browsewrap” agreements.
Clickwrap agreements—which require a user to check a box or click an icon to signify agreement with the terms—are usually enforceable under U.S. law, even where the terms appear in a separate hyperlinked webpage but where language accompanying the box or
The latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here.
In this issue of Socially Aware, our Burton Award-winning guide to the law and business of social media, we offer practical tips to help ensure the enforceability of website terms of use; we discuss the FTC’s ongoing efforts to enforce disclosure
[Editor’s Note: In response to the success of our earlier post on terms and conditions for mobile apps, two of our London-based colleagues have prepared a “remixed” version, which looks at the subject of mobile app terms and conditions from a European perspective. Enjoy!]
The mobile app has become the new face of business. It’s no longer sufficient to have a company website. More and more companies want a mobile app that users can download to their smartphones and easily access. It’s not ![75601199_illustration-[Converted]](https://www.sociallyawareblog.com/files/2016/01/75601199_illustration-Converted-279x300-1.jpg)
difficult to see why. People are voting with their thumbs.
In 2015, overall mobile app usage grew by 58%, with lifestyle and shopping apps growing 81%, following previous 174% growth in 2014, according to FlurryMobile. Indeed, FlurryMobile figures show that mobile commerce now accounts for 40% of online commerce worldwide. Accordingly, the advantages of an app to business, from a customer marketing, engagement, service and awareness perspective, are clear.
Even traditionally conservative sectors such as financial services are being revolutionised by the mobile app. In 2015, the British Bankers Association identified that banking by smartphone and tablet has become the main way for UK customers to manage their finances, with mobile banking overtaking branches and the internet as the most popular way to bank.
If your company will be among the many businesses that launch a mobile app in Europe in 2016, one of the key legal protections your company will need in connection with such launch is an end user licence agreement (EULA). So, where do you start? Here at MoFo, we regularly review mobile app EULAs and we’ve noticed a number of issues that app developers don’t always get right. Here is our list of the key issues you will need to consider.
Your EULA will be an important part of your strategy to help mitigate risks and protect your intellectual property in connection with your app. It’s unlikely that you would release desktop software without an EULA, and mobile apps (which are, after all, software products) warrant the same protection. While a number of mobile app providers such as Google provide a “default” EULA to govern mobile apps downloaded from their respective app stores, they also permit developers to adopt their own customized EULAs instead—subject to a few caveats, as mentioned below. Because the default EULAs can be quite limited and can’t possibly address all of the issues that your particular app is likely to raise, it’s generally best to adopt your own EULA in order to protect your interests.
The European Commission has announced new draft laws that would give consumers new remedies where digital content supplied online is defective or not as described by the seller.
On Dec. 9, 2015, the European Commission proposed two new directives on the supply of digital content and the online sale of goods. In doing so, the Commission is making progress towards one of the main goals in the Digital Single Market Strategy (the “DSM Strategy”) announced in May 2015: to strengthen the European digital economy and increase consumer confidence in trading across EU Member States.
This is not the first time that the Commission has tried to align consumer laws across the EU; its last attempt at a Common European Sales Law faltered earlier this year. But the Commission has now proposed two new directives, dealing both with contracts for the supply of digital content and other online sales (the “Proposed Directives”).
National parliaments can raise objections to the Proposed Directives within eight weeks, on the grounds of non-compliance with the subsidiarity principle—that is, by arguing that that regulation of digital content and online sales is more effectively dealt with at a national level.
Part of the issue with previous EU legislative initiatives in this area is that “harmonized” has really meant “the same as long as a country doesn’t want to do anything different.” This time, the Proposed Directives have been drafted as so-called “maximum harmonization measures,” which would preclude Member States from providing any greater or lesser protection on the matters falling within their scope. The Commission hopes that this consistent approach across Member States will encourage consumers to enter into transactions across EU borders, while also allowing traders to simplify their legal documentation by using a single set of terms and conditions for all customers within the EU.
An outline of the scope and key provisions of each of the Proposed Directives, as well as the effect on English law, are summarized after the jump.
The latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here.
In this issue of Socially Aware, our Burton Award-winning guide to the law and business of social media, we highlight five key social media law issues to address with your corporate clients; we discuss when social media posts are discoverable
