Social Media and the Law - A JD Supra Reader
What do irresponsible tweets, snooping employers, European cookies, and Canadian cyberbullies have in common? All issues you may never have considered at the intersection of social media and the law. Culled from recent legal updates for your interest:
1. Why your company needs a social media policy:
The first debates in this year’s presidential contest were held last week. The biggest blunder didn’t happen on camera, however, and it didn’t come from Messrs. Obama or Romney. Instead, it was a tweet from KitchenAid’s corporate account:
“Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’. #nbcpolitics”
Let KitchenAid’s mistake be a lesson to your company. (Pullman & Comley)
2. California says ‘no’ to employer social media snooping:
The Golden State has decided that silence on social media passwords is indeed golden. A new law prohibiting employers from requesting passwords of employees and job applicants goes into effect January 1, 2013, making California the third state (after Maryland and Illinois) to outlaw the practice. (Fisher & Phillips) (Proskauer) (Morrison & Foerster) (Hopkins & Carley) (XpertHR)
3. Google settles publisher group lawsuit over book digitization proejct:
The aim of Google Books’ Library Project is simple, according to the internet giant: “make it easier for people to find relevant books – specifically, books they wouldn’t find any other way such as those that are out of print – while carefully respecting authors’ and publishers’ copyrights.” But the lawsuits spawned by the project are far from simple. One such suit, with the Association of American Publishers, has settled. (Foley Hoag)
4. Court blocks social media fishing expedition:
A federal court in California ruled that Home Depot could not access the social media posts of a former employee who sued the company for unlawful gender discrimination. Home Depot sought the messages because they could contain information relevant to the lawsuit. (Cullen and Dykman)
5. Let them eat cookies!
US companies with operations or assets in Europe risk significant fines if they do not comply with the EU Cookie Directive. A number of regulatory agencies in European countries plan to begin actively enforcing the directive including, for example, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which can levy fines of up to £500,000 for noncompliance in the UK. That’s a lot of cookies. (Carr, McClellan, Ingersoll, Thompson & Horn)
6. Right to privacy win Canada cyberbullying case:
A Canadian teen’s right to privacy, says the country’s Supreme Court, allows her to track down anonymously the identify of her cyberbully. The 15-year-old was the victim of a fake Facebook account, but when she tried to gain access to details of the account without revealing herself, the media stepped in and claimed their right to report on the story outweighed the girl’s right to privacy. The Supreme Court disagreed. (Fraser Miller Casgrain) (Asta Puraite)
7. Dispute over virtual worlds gets real:
Copying in the video game industry is commonplace. So commonplace, in fact, that “often it is hard to determine who originated the content at issue.” That’s what makes the recent lawsuit between Electronic Arts and Zynga so noteworthy. EA contends that Zynga’s The Ville resembles a little too closely EA’s The Sims Social, and that The Ville infringes on various copyrights of The Sims Social. Stay tuned as this one develops (potential spoiler alert: there’s a lot of case law in Zynga’s favor). (Fenwick & West)
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