Archive for Uncategorized

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani]

Mendenhall v. Hanesbrands, 2012 WL 1230743 (M.D.N.C.; Apr. 12, 2012)

This case has it all: Twitter, a pro football player, terrorism, Osama bin Laden and contract law geekiness!  

Background: Rashard Mendenhall plays professional football as a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Mendenhall entered into an endorsement contract with Hanesbrands, which owns the Champion brand. The agreement between Hanesbrands and Mendenhall had a “morals clause,” which originally said that Hanesbrands could terminate the agreement if Mendenhall was arrested, charged with, or indicted for a felony or a crime involving moral turpitude. This clause was later amended to provide that Hanesbrands could terminate the agreement if, in addition to being charged with or indicted for a crime, Mendenhall:

[Became] involved in any situation or occurrence . . . tending to bring Mendenhall into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, or ridicule, or tending to shock, insult, or offend the majority of the consuming public . . . . [Hanesbrands’] decision on all matters arising under [this section] shall be conclusive.

Mendenhall’s Tweets: Mendenhall is an avid user of Twitter (@R_Mendenhall) and describes himself as a “Conversationalist and Professional Athlete.” In the wake of President Obama’s announcement of Osama bin Laden’s assassination, Mendenhall posted a series of Tweets decrying the joy that people expressed about this incident (a link to the first tweet in the series): Read More…

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani]

We can never be reminded often enough of the “things you should not say over email.” This is one topic that deserves the endless flogging from the media and bloggers (and from lawyers) that it seems to receive.

NPR has a nice little list (“23 Things Not to Write in an E-mail”) of 23 words and phrases that are red flags for problematic emails. Here are a few of the choice ones:

• big mistake
• serious trouble
• too late
• uncomfortable
• not comfortable
• I don’t think we should
• don’t share this
• between you and me
• just between us

I’d add “we probably should not put this in an email,” which is something I’ve actually seen in an email.

Read More…

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani]

Duick v. Toyota, B224839 (Ca Ct. App.; Aug. 31, 2011)

Toyota and Saatchi & Saatchi ran a marketing campaign where a visitor to the Toyota Matrix website could designate a separate person who would receive prank emails and messages. Here is how the court describes the campaign and Duick’s (the plaintiff) experience:

During the campaign, any visitor to the Toyota Matrix website (“player 1″) could designate another person (“player 2″) for participation in the Your Other You “interactive experience.” Player 2 would then receive an email purportedly from player 1, inviting player 2 to click a hyperlink that was in some manner “identified with Toyota.” The link would direct player 2 to a web page entitled “Personality Evaluation.”

Read More…

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani]

“Scraping” refers to the practice of accessing a website through an automated mechanism (such as a bot) and extracting data. With the proliferation of data on the Internet, the practice of scraping has grown. Scraping has always been a legally questionable practice, but here are some steps you can take to prevent scraping from your website, and steps you can take to bolster a claim against a scraper.

Terms of Service: Maintain a terms of service on the site that prohibits scraping. This way a scraper who accesses the site will arguably do so in violation of the terms of service.

Read More…

We’re excited to launch the “Focalize” blog.

There are plenty of legal and technology blogs out there, but the focus of this blog will be to present information that is useful to our clients. This means no legalese. Every post will have one perspective — “what does this mean to me?” or “why does this matter?”

We’ll probably cover the range of topics in the technology, Internet, and media spaces. We don’t aim to be an all-encompassing resource, but we’ll flag things we think are important and pass them along.

And once in a while, we’ll probably throw some humor into the mix. (We take ourselves seriously, but not that seriously.)