As the Internet continues to evolve and expand at unprecedented
rates compared with that of any other industry sector, the legal
exposures and thus liabilities associated with this new market-space
continue to expand as well. Chances are good that you as a
business owner, will one day be faced with one or more of the
following legal liabilities sometime in the future. These
legal obstacles may become persistent over time. The best
defensive is a good offense and the best way to have an offense is
to become knowledgeable about all the possible legal pitfalls of
business on the Internet and where the hidden exposures and legal
liabilities lay, so as not to become surprised when the
pop-up. As Murphy's Law indicates, "...things always seem
to happen at the worst possible timing...". Therefore at www.ProtectCopy.com
we strive to provide you with timely information to become educated
of all possible liabilities and legal exposures. Using our Secret
Copyrighter is one of the first steps to securing your online
content. Buy today it today.
1. Defamation Online (the World Wide Web), both via
e-mails and on websites too! One of your employees or
even a sub-contractor could send an email to other employees,
contractors or simply a third party questioning the professionalism
of another employee or worse a contractor. The message could
then get distributed further throughout the company. The
consultant, contractor or employee who the message is about could
then find out about the message and it's contents. The
individual could then bring suit against the company for a number of
things, alleging the inter-office e-mail is defamatory, under
Master-Servant relationship you as the employer could be liable and
held to a higher standard. An agitated customer is upset about
treatment they received with your company, so they go online and
find an online forum where they purposefully file a complaint which
you may view as defamation, yet in actuality the upset customer is
simply voicing his or her opinion about the product (s) and/or
service they received with your company. This situation can be
even worse if the upset company registers and Internet
Domain Name and then proceeds to build a website upon the domain
which "slams" your company or other online business.
If the individual purchases a domain name which is confusingly
similar to a Federally Registered trademark you own, then you may
have a claim against the person for Cybersquatting.
You must also be careful with your own website. If for example
you launch a website that includes unfavorable remarks about a
competitor, you could avail yourself to open legal liability in
inviting a lawsuit by your competitor, claiming defamation.
Similarly if you posted information on your website in-which another
company or individual can claim copyright over whether it is written
or in the form of clip-art, you could be sued for copyright
infringement or even defamation, as the owner of the copyrighted
information might consider the placement of their copyright on your
site to be defamatory to their copyright in addition to
infringement. Of course you can protect your copyright whether
registered with the Federal Government or not simply by using the
Secret Copyrighter, this software leaves a
secret mark on all your images so that you can identify them as
yours, this "secret mark" is embedded into the image so
when and if it is stolen from your site you are able to find the
image and then to prove it is yours!
2. Invasion of Privacy: A former
employee's name is listed as a contact person on a company's
Internet website. The individual who was an employee and is
now no longer an employee could then have a cause of action suing
you their former employer, charging unauthorized use of his name for
advertising purposes and invasion of privacy.
3. Trademark Infringement in Meta-Tags:
A meta-tag is a hidden code within the head code of each of your
websites, they are not required in your website, however, the
utilization of meta-tags can dramatically improve your search engine
visibility, in fact meta-tags are often an essential component of
any Search Engine
Optimization Strategy. The <meta> element provides
meta-information about your page, such as descriptions and keywords
for search engines and refresh rates. Any person who owns and
operates a website now faces all the same exposures and legal
liabilities of traditional publishers. Even if your use of
another's intellectual property is innocent, meaning you did not
willfully violate another person's trademark you could still be
subject to infringement claims, these types of legal claims can be
costly. The difficulty about the Internet is that the Internet
by it's very nature a public forum increases the chances of theft to
your intellectual property and inadvertent theft of another's
intellectual property. For example if you have an online store
and are selling various products of other company's, and you choose
to use the product name or brand name of these products within your
meta-tags as an attempt to optimize your site for the keywords or
phrases which contain the products brand-name, the owner/owners of
one of the brand names may have an infringement claim against
you. It is always a best practice to first ask permission
before using a famous mark or brand-name. Do not forget to
protect your marks and brand names too. The best way to
protect your trademarks is to use a TM next to your mark and when
finances permit to register your TM (TradeMark) with the USPTO
(United States Patent and Trademark) Office. In addition to
registering your marks it may become increasingly difficult to
protect your marks and art therefore we suggest using our software
the Secret Copyrighter.
4. Trademark Infringement in domain names (URL's =
Universal Resource Locators): The best way to
protect your domain name if it is a unique domain name is to
register a Federal Trademark for the Domain Name. To be
charged with trademark infringement for your domain name is really
quite easy. For example if you have a carpet cleaning business
in the state of Rhode
Island, you call your carpet cleaning business: Spots
Removed and someone in another state has the same name but they got
a Federally Registered Trademark to the name, then the person with
the Federally Registered Trademark would have a cause of action
against you...therefore they could come after you for the
infringement of their trademark. If you then offer to sell the
person the domain you could then be charged with Cybersquatting, you
certainly do not want to be labeled a Cybersquatter
on the Internet.
Very few Internet liability exposures and legal issues will be
covered under your existing liability insurance program. Much
of Internet liability legal exposures is still relatively new space
of law, an area which will cause you the need to educate not only
the Judge in the case but the lay people on a jury. Therefore
the expense of litigation of domain names and trademark issues can
be extremely costly very quickly. If you must pay for the
costs defending a claim for trademark infringement the costs of the
claim could easily bankrupt any business. The best thing to do
is to be knowledgeable about trademarks and copyrights and the
possible claims which can arise from their use.
Most GL (General Liability) Insurances do not cover
"advertising injury", since most websites are considered
advertisements then most standard insurance policies will not cover
the new liability exposure and legal liabilities associated with
your website. One good thing is that most GL Insurance
policies will, however, provide limited copyright and trademark
coverage for certain "advertising activities", and certain
other activities which might not meet the insurance policies
definition of advertising within the website itself. Internet
Liability insurance is designed specifically to protect against
Internet Media Liability exposures and other legal exposures which
may arise out of the use of the Internet for a website for your
business. Having the right Internet Liability could certainly
save your business.
It is virtually impossible to predict what the next wave of
litigation will be therefore it is also advisable to consider a
second insurance policy. Some insurance companies now offer
what is referred to as "All Risk" Comprehensive Internet
Insurance Policies, these policies are excellent since they can
cover all claims arising out of "Internet
Activities". The difficulty of Internet claims is
that most claims involve "cutting edge", legal issues,
these cutting edge legal issues can be very costly. It is
recommended to secure legal counsel prior to getting into legal
trouble.
You should remember that all modes of communication are
insurable, many other forms of communication, CD-ROM's, print,
telephone etc have legal history and case precedent therefore are
typically not cutting edge legal issues in-which may become
extremely expensive as with Internet Litigation. The Internet
and a companies website has quickly become your companies primary
communication tool as it has with most companies. Along with
the freedoms of the Internet have come many responsibilities and
open liabilities and legal exposures. These legal liabilities
must be protected against like with all media. Start
protecting your own Intellectual Property now with the Secret
Copyrighter available from www.ProtectCopy.com
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