As we all knew that internet piracy had grow enormously from the past few years, this trend had to be stopped and people have to be aware that pirating online or downloading pirated files online is an offence. We as a member of a law abiding society understand the concept that we cannot steal people’s property. Most of us would not steal, intend to steal and will generally be honest and not appropriating things that do not belong to us; when we need something, we buy. However, most of us seem unable to apply this ideology when we get connected online. We download without paying, utilizing software without purchasing, and generally think that we will not get caught by doing so. The lack of public awareness in internet piracy was one of the crucial elements which stimulate such act. By contrasting the degree of public awareness with the growth of online piracy, we can tell that there are still a lot to catch up in order to control and to eliminate it.
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If a piece of work or something someone/some people have created then they should own the rights to it and therefore it belongs to them. There is of course varying degrees in how many rights they reserve and different countries more than likely have their own interpretations, but on the web this becomes a bit more of a grey area, with no-one to stringently enforce the laws, that’s not to say that if you do violate them you wont be caught.
Wondering if a trademark is important to you as a business owner? Let’s start with the basics. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or logo that distinguishes and identifies the source of goods of one company or person from another. For example, the name Kraft is trademarked, as is Nike’s “swoosh” logo.
The list of what constitutes a trademark is long. A trademark can also be granted to unique packaging such as the shape of Coca-cola’s bottle, building designs, color, sound, and even fragrance. Service marks receive the same legal protection, but are used to distinguish services instead of products.
As you may have heard, the FTC recently reached a significant settlement with an adware firm by the name of Zango. So, what are the lessons learned from the settlement?
The FTC and Zango Settlement Regarding Adware
According to FTC filings, Zango was a rather prolific adware firm. From 2002 to 2005, Zango distributed its adware product to the huge number of Internet users without their knowledge according to the FTC. The product was placed on the computers of individuals when they went to download free games, screensavers and such. On top of this, the FTC alleged that Zango and its affiliates placed the programs on computers in such a way that it was difficult to both find and remove them.
Most sites on the web are at least faintly familiar with the implementation of legal regulations related to their sites. Most, however, have never heard of the California Catch-22.
Most sites tend to view complying with legal regulations as a somewhat amorphous subject. You know you are supposed to do something, but are not particularly sure why or what to do. This leads to the rather humorous situation where many sites have terms and conditions that are completely inapplicable the what they are doing and also look startlingly similar to terms and conditions found on other sites. One might even imagine a bit of “cut and paste” was going on, but who am I to say!
