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IAPP Privacy Presentation – Is the Wizard of Oz Still Behind the Curtain?

On May 10, 2012, I had the privilege of making a presentation at the IAPP Canada Privacy Symposium 2012. The title of my presentation was "Social and Mobile and Clouds, Oh My!" and it addressed some of the emerging issues in privacy, data protection and surveillance that arise as a result of globalizing technology and the convergence of social media, mobile marketing and cloud computing.

As part of that presentation (and as I have started to do for some time now in other presentations), I raised the issue of how lawyers, the law, legislators and regulators often use words to describe activities – words rooted in tradition or precedent – that are no longer applicable to the activity in today’s world. "Privacy" is such a word, although "not applicable" perhaps is too harsh. Obviously the word has significant applicability in a wide variety of situations. But "invasion of privacy" has become a knee-jerk reaction to virtually every information-gathering activity, even information readily and publicly available and, in some cases, posted, disclosed or distributed by the very individual whose privacy is alleged to have been "invaded."

Please feel free to download a PDF of my presentation, "Social and Mobile and Clouds, Oh My!" [PDF] (Note: Embedded video file sizes are too large to include), and let’s start a conversation about how we use words and how they wind up in laws and regulations. Lawyers work with words. Use them artfully and they provide powerful structures within which society, commerce and all forms of human endeavor function. Use them improperly and they cause confusion, uncertainty, inconsistency and inherently inequitable outcomes.

Seems like I am not the only one to point this out. Take a look at the insightful comments by John Montgomery, COO of GroupM Interaction, North America, as reported in a MediaPost RAW posting on Social Media entitled: If Marketing Terms Could Kill.

Kudos John. I’m with you. Let’s get it right.

FYI, Rimon has teams of lawyers who have experience and follow developments in privacy and data protection, information security and identity theft. If you want to know more, if you need counsel or need help navigating, or if you require legal representation in this or any other area, feel free to call me, Joseph I. ("Joe") Rosenbaum, or any of the Rimon lawyers with whom you regularly work.

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Krakatoa: East of Java; Google West of Fair Use

Some of you may remember the 1969 disaster film, "Krakatoa: East of Java" (which, coincidentally ties nicely to a recent Useless But Compelling Fact topic). Well today, Legal Bytes is happy to alert you to the results of jury deliberations – yet another copyright law disaster – just unfolding out West (West Coast of the United States, that is). Just hours ago (and providing more evidence that confusion reigns and continues to increase under existing copyright law), the jury has rendered its decision in the copyright phase of yet another intellectual property trial relevant to the online and mobile world. As you may recall, just last month we reported another copyright flip-flop winding its way through the courts in our post entitled, Appeals Court Vacates Summary Judgment in Viacom v. YouTube.

Today, a jury in California, deliberating in a case brought by Oracle against Google and alleging that Google infringed Oracle’s Java copyrights, concluded that Google did use the Java interfaces, but couldn’t reach any conclusion if that was protected use under the copyright "fair use" exception ("fair use" is a defense to copyright infringement). The jury did find separately that Google infringed some of the Java code and used it in developing the mobile phone platform, Android. However, before Oracle celebrates prematurely, Judge William Alsup noted that because only a minimal amount of code was actually used, Oracle’s request for $1 billion in damages or some share of Google’s profits was essentially ridiculous, and that only statutory damages, ostensibly a relatively nominal amount, would likely be applicable.

Indeed, these cases bolster a growing argument that as digital technology and innovation move forward, current copyright law is either inadequate or irrelevant, or both. Legal Bytes will continue to monitor developments in this evolving and convoluted intellectual property dilemma. I encourage you to take a look at an opinion piece I wrote separately entitled, A Contrarian’s View of Copyright: Much Ado About Nothing. But that’s just my opinion; the jury’s verdict is fact!

If you would like further information or need help making sense of the legal issues arising in our digital online and mobile world, feel free to contact me, Joe Rosenbaum, or the Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work.