Legal

Building Brand Identity – Five Reasons Your Blog Needs a Ghostwriter

A ghostwriter is any writer who creates content for a project that will be presented under another name. As you are traveling in a bookstore, you might marvel at the sheer volume of works certain names such as Tom Clancy put out. In many cases, these books weren’t written by a single writer but rather many and then published under the big name. This arrangement is a good one for many writers, as it allows them to get work and valuable writing experience, while also benefiting the larger name by allowing more work under their aegis to get out. Your blog might just benefit from hiring a ghostwriter for the same reasons. Every blog needs a writer to direct it, and blogs do best when guided by one or two voices in a consistent direction.

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Building Brand Identity – Five Reasons Your Blog Needs a Ghostwriter

Argentina court repeals songstress’ defamation claims against Google, Yahoo!

Last year, a court in Argentina ruled both Google and Yahoo! as liable for defamation claims after a celebrity found a search for her name was returning pornographic websites. Now, it seems, charges against Yahoo! and Google have been avoided. Experts, however, already expect an appeal from the plaintiff. The claim was put in by Argentinean entertainer Virginia Da Cunha, a singer, songwriter, composer and actress. She is probably best known for being a member of the all-female band Bandana, and now, in the Western world, for taking Google and Yahoo! to court over search results. The ruling, issued last week, said Google and Yahoo! could only be held liable for defamation if the content was clearly illegal and were negligent in removing it. Since 2006, there have been around 130 similar cases, with celebrities and ordinary folk alike taking major search engines to court over their results pages.

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Argentina court repeals songstress’ defamation claims against Google, Yahoo!

Bad Ads: Who Should be Responsible for Fraudulent and Deceptive Advertising?

Until recently, it has been a legal standard that publications are not liable for the bad behavior of their advertisers. While some print publications do require that advertising conforms to certain standards or follows guidelines that they set, this is almost always based on community sensibility and the personal preferences of the publishers. When it comes to the content, the legitimacy of the claims being made by an advertiser; there usually is no responsibility for a publication in the United States to determine if the claims are true or valid. However, the relationships between the publisher, the advertising network, and the advertiser has changed enormously and everyone should be aware of what this means.

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Bad Ads: Who Should be Responsible for Fraudulent and Deceptive Advertising?

Yahoo! set to snap up shares of Hulu

Yahoo! , the venerable search and news portal , has an interest in purchasing a significant amount of stock in video streaming site Hulu if the company goes public, with investment bank Stifel Nicolaus & Co claiming Yahoo! would like a “considerable” stake in the start-up. Although wildly popular in the United States, Hulu still lags well behind the leading video portal, the Google-owned and operated YouTube. However, with 28.45 million unique viewers in that market alone, such a deal would be nothing to sneeze at. The site also generated 783 million ad impressions in July 2010, which beat out Microsoft, according to analyst comScore. Figures released last April by Hulu’s chief executive, Jason Kilar, also indicated the company raked in $100 million in revenue over 2009, an amount they hoped to eclipse in the first six months of 2010. This may be achieved with help from the recently released Hulu Plus pricing model, which grants viewers more access than the free service at $9.99, including full series of programmes

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Yahoo! set to snap up shares of Hulu

YouTube DMCA Ruling is Good News for Blog Sites

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides a “safe harbor” from strict liability for copyright infringement to online service providers that satisfy its requirements. A June, 2010 ruling by a U.S. District Court in New York in favor of YouTube established an important precedent for blog sites for avoiding strict liability for copyright infringement by blog posters. The DMCA Online service providers such as blog sites are vulnerable to claims for copyright infringement if visitors post infringing material on their websites, even if the service providers are unaware that the material is infringing. This unfortunate result – that’s often quite surprising to blog site webmasters who are unfamiliar with copyright law – is due to the strict liability principles of the U.S. Copyright Act. Signed into law in 1998, the DMCA protects online service providers from strict liability for copyright infringement by their users if they: * post a specific DMCA notice prominently on their websites, * register with the US Copyright Office, and * promptly block access to, or take down, allegedly infringing materials if they receive a notice from a copyright owner claiming infringement, or if the service provider has “actual knowledge” that it is hosting infringing material or if the service provider is aware of facts or circumstances that should make it “readily apparent” that there is infringing activity. This protection by DMCA is known as a “safe harbor”; it completely protects the service provider from vicarious liability for copyright infringement.

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YouTube DMCA Ruling is Good News for Blog Sites

Do Trademarks Always Trump Domain Names? Not always.

Online start-ups are faced with the daunting task of selecting a domain name that will withstand legal challenges. There’s a general belief among online start-ups that a trademark owner will always trump a domain name registrant with the same or confusingly similar domain name. That’s not always the result… as two recent 2010 UDRP decisions point out. The UDRP What is the UDRP, and why is it important?

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Do Trademarks Always Trump Domain Names? Not always.

Do Trademarks Always Trump Domain Names? Not always.

Online start-ups are faced with the daunting task of selecting a domain name that will withstand legal challenges. There’s a general belief among online start-ups that a trademark owner will always trump a domain name registrant with the same or confusingly similar domain name. That’s not always the result… as two recent 2010 UDRP decisions point out. The UDRP What is the UDRP, and why is it important? The UDRP acronym stands for the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. The UDRP is a set of procedures and rules that are supposed to help determine who should prevail in a dispute over domain name ownership. The UDRP is important because it provides a faster and cheaper way to resolve a domain name dispute than a full-blown lawsuit in a court of law. Instead of litigation, it’s an administrative proceeding where the contestants present written arguments to a panelist-arbitrator who issues a binding decision. In-person hearings (including hearings by teleconference, video conference, and web conference) are permitted only in exceptional cases, and are therefore rare.

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Do Trademarks Always Trump Domain Names? Not always.

Improve Your Bottom Line With Audience Engagement

Before I decided on the title for this article I wrote down a list of options: how to engage an audience, how to affect change, and how to alter perceptions and change attitudes. All of which are valid, and all of which are important to you as a business owner or marketing manager. The trouble is, most busy, results-oriented business owners and managers want quick, simple answers to complex marketing questions that involve psychological and sociological issues. Buying a mobile phone, makeup, or a car is more complicated than which option provides the most features at the cheapest cost. Even if that was someone’s intent, it’s a purchasing strategy that is defeated by the myriad of confusing and conflicting feature packages offered: you can get this with that, but not that with this, unless you get the other thing you don’t want, and of course whatever you do want costs a lot more. To clarify the situation you can always consult the specifications with the help of an engineer to explain them to you, or you could read some user-generated consumer reports that were probably written by some paid shill or someone with way too much time on their hands. As a last resort you could just buy the one that comes in the nicest color. What gets lost in all the paradox of choice, technological hype, and fad-marketing confusion is no matter what you sell, tanks or toilet paper, it’s people who buy it, even if those people work for mega corporations that order in container-load quantities. People are frustrating after all, it’s hard enough negotiating where to go for dinner with your friends, so what chance do you have of convincing strangers to part with their hard earned cash

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Improve Your Bottom Line With Audience Engagement

Your Website’s Future is On Television

While you were busy Twittering the Internet has evolved into a whole new marketing presentation environment with increased opportunities for those who understand the medium and how to use it to deliver entertaining content, particularly when that content is aimed at selling products, services, or even ideas. The Web, more specifically Web Video content, has invaded television, and the invasion has just begun. ‘StudioDaily blogs’ reports on the inevitability of Internet-enabled TVs (IETVs) reaching significant market penetration in a post by Debra Kaufman entitled “Internet-enabled TVs trump 3D sets. Kaufman highlights iSuppli’s report stating: “IETV shipments will expand at rates of more than 50 percent for the next two years, and then continue to increase at double-digit rates until the end of 2014. By then, global IETV shipments are anticipated to reach 148.3 million units, accounting for 54 percent of the total flat-panel TV market.” The entire post can be read at http://www.studiodaily.com/blog/?p=3786. As media moguls continue to stew about illegal downloads and look to technologies like 3D movies and television to save the day, consumers have moved on to what they want – more content. And since networks are unwilling to invest in what’s required to fill the content gap created by the 500-channel universe, the void will be filled by Web content with video programming positioned to capture major audience market share. The market penetration of IETVs means the bar has been raised for webmedia content; amateur hour has past, and if companies want to continue to be competitive they will have to upgrade their content.

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Your Website’s Future is On Television

How to Use Video as an Effective Communication Tool

Now that just about everybody is a believer in Web video, it’s time to figure out just how to use it effectively as a marketing communication tool. Oh sure, there are a few diehard holdouts filling their sites with thousands of words of densely congealed text in a vain attempt to attract ‘Mr. GoodSearch;’ and let’s all encourage them to continue, especially our competitors, because as they stick to yesterday’s marketing tactics, we can capture market share by communicating, using techniques that actually lead to more audience engagement, more memory retention, and more sales leads. Even if you’re still a bit unsure of the benefits Web video brings to your marketing efforts, think of the commitment Google has invested in YouTube and then you’ll know where the biggest search opportunities exist. So let’s all agree, video is where it’s at, but hold on just a second, let’s call it compelling content presentation, or more precisely, properly conceived, professionally produced, attention-to-post video that delivers a meaningful memorable message in a manner that is less advertising and more content, less pitch and more experience. Can you do this yourself? Doubtful, but maybe, so before you run out and blow the petty cash on the latest HD video camera, proper lighting equipment, editing and motion graphic software, how to DVDs like ‘You Can Be The Next Ridley Scott’, a computer and hard drive powerful enough to handle HD file sizes and software processing, custom photography, signature music and sound effects; and before you ask your accounts payable person or spouse to shoot you in your office with a backdrop of photos featuring last year’s office picnic and the broken office chair you’ve been meaning to replace; ask yourself, is this really how to go about marketing my company?

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How to Use Video as an Effective Communication Tool

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