Ways for Web 2.0 Startups to Commit Legal Suicide

Check out the 9/20 WebWare column "Legal Suicide for Web 2.0 start-ups: A beginner's guide"

In it Rafe Needleman says:
"I got an email from Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation yesterday. It began, "Half the companies you blog about have copyright or privacy legal issues simmering just under the surface. Since most of them are thinly capitalized, when they get into trouble, they're likely to call EFF for legal advice. Several already have."

I called von Lohmann right away, since I've had a nagging feeling for months that too many of the interesting products I've been seeing were legally shaky. So I talked with him to come up with this list: 9 Fun Ways Web 2.0 Startups Can Commit Legal Suicide."

Copyright, Fair Use, & YouTube

Below is a cool ten minute YouTube video on fair use that you may have already seen--but definitely worth while! It uses snippets of animated Disney characters to illustrate fair use. It's directed by Eric Faden out of Stanford University's Fair Use Project Documentary Film Program.

Another really great resource on copyright and fair use is American University's Center for Social Media Copyright & Fair Use Site. They also have streaming video illustrations of fair use, aimed more at professionals and filmmakers.

Here's a July 9 post from Jonathan Bailey on the Blog Herald "Copyright Risks in Embedding YouTube Clips." It includes 5 steps for "Taking Precautions." And here's a response to that post from the Electronic Freedom Foundation "YouTube Embedding and Copyright" that says "Well, the news really isn't that dire. In fact, I'd say bloggers are generally pretty safe on this score."

A Fair(y) Use Tale directed by Eric Faden

Margaret Boyd, Picasa, Gmail, and flickr, Oh My!

Margaret Boyd,
originally uploaded by hhdane_mom.

Assignment #6 More Flickr Fun

Oh boy! Picasa, Gmail, and flickr all working together! I found a post that explained how to send your photos from Picasa to flickr by emailing the images within Picasa using its Email button. It just so happened that I used my Gmail account to do it, but I had a choice of using my work account. Whatever is in the body of the email serves as the flickr tags, while the title of the email serves as the image title.

Margaret Boyd was the first female graduate of Ohio University, in 1873. Photo courtesy Boyd Family Collection, Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, Ohio University Libraries, Athens, Ohio

This image, though I'm guessing at the date of creation, is old enough to be teetering on the brink of being in the Public Domain. Since we don't know who took the photo it would fall into the category of unpublished anonymous and pseudonymous works or work made for hire (corporate authorship). In this category works are under copyright for 120 years from date of creation, so only works created before 1887 are in the Public Domain (in 2007). If we knew the creator of the photo, it would fall into the category of unpublished work which remains under copyright for the life of the author + 70 years--only works from authors who died before 1937 are in the Public Domain (in 2007). As you might now guess, unpublished works have a different schedule for entering the Public Domain. A wonderful reference on this is Peter Hirtle's page. Note that although I'm treating the image as PD, I'm still crediting/citing the repository.