Rob Ellis – Page 2 – Media Tech Law

Granting Access: Real and Imagined Threats Regarding Terms of Service

Posted September 9, 2014 by Rob Ellis 0

Introduction

The latest Nielsen data show that the average smartphone owner uses approximately 26 apps in a given month. (Median use is probably quite a bit lower, but the numbers are still impressive.) Marketplaces for apps, like Apple’s App Store and Google Play, have standardized how apps are distributed. Users are informed of an app’s features, as well as the extent to which the app may function on a particular smartphone. From taking pictures and recording video, to collecting GPS and location data, to accessing contact lists, apps have access to larger and larger sets of personal information. For all practical purposes, each of those apps employs some type of Terms of Service (“TOS”) agreement and privacy policy outlining its required permissions before it may be installed and used.

Practically, it is oftentimes unlikely that users downloading an app fully read and comprehend the terms of service or privacy policy, but instead give the app’s list of requested permissions no more than a cursory glance. A 2008 study by Aleecia M. McDonald and Lorrie Faith Cranor found that – based on the median length of privacy policies and the standard reading pace of 250 words per minute – it would take an individual approximately 30 work days to read all of the privacy policies encountered on a daily basis. The study only accounted for privacy policies, and not terms of service agreements or user agreements. Due to the length and ubiquity of these terms and policies, it is reasonable to think that many users do not take the time to fully understand the terms and policies to which they agree. This explains why users may not know exactly what permissions and capabilities they’ve approved for the apps they use.

Google Ordered to Cull Both European and Global Search Indexes

Posted July 8, 2014 by Rob Ellis 0

Google & Europe’s Right to Be Forgotten

A recent round of court decisions has forced Google, the internationally known search behemoth, to shrink its search index, instead of expanding on it. This past May, a ruling by the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) required Google to provide a means by which citizens of the EU could request the search provider to delete information collected on individuals where the search result(s) “appear to be inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant or excessive in the light of the time that had elapsed.

Expanding Accessibility: UN Adopts Article 9, Raising Accessibility Standards

Posted June 23, 2014 by Rob Ellis 0

Introduction
In April 2014, the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopted its General Comment No 2 on the issue of Accessibility, which applies to member States within the UN that have signed the treaty. The General Comment to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) seeks to provide guidance to all relevant stakeholders, such as states and international organizations, on how to ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities. The treaty serves as the first of its kind to address access to information and communication technologies (ICT) for users with disabilities, and may now serve as a basis for State parties to reinforce and regulate national legislative frameworks.

Notably the CRPD, Article 9, paragraph 13 places particular onus on public and private actors regarding ICT. “The focus is no longer on legal personality and the public or private nature of… information and communication, and services. As long as goods, products and services are open or provided to the public, they must be accessible to all, regardless of whether they are owned and/or provided by a public authority or a private enterprise.” This public and private distinction is a first of its kind. Prior regulations placed the requirements for accessible ICT solely on public or government entities. These entities were essentially held to be established in some way for the public good, and therefore had a right to be accessible to the public audience. The shift in language which now includes “all products and services open or provided to the public” places such accessibility requirements on private industry as well, and will set the tone for implementation of such standards by UN treaty members to the CRDP.

Aereo and WWE: Disruptive Upstarts in the Land of Live Broadcast TV

Posted May 5, 2014 by Rob Ellis 0

Ever since YouTube streamlined the process for allowing anyone to easily post and watch videos online, the barrier to entry to provide and consume video has become incredibly low. Traditional television outlets have embraced online video to some extent, offering access to their most popular shows within a week, or sometimes a day after they originally air. What’s more, Internet-only services like Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Amazon’s Prime provide an extensive catalog of shows available on demand. One of the few remaining holdouts regarding online access to broadcast television is in the arena of live sports. Organizations like the National Football League (NFL) tightly control broadcast rights for live events, while other organizations, like World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), control access to their live events through pay-per-view broadcast. Both of these models, however, threaten to be up-ended by the new and novel approaches to content delivery.

WWE and the Digital Only Approach

A shake-up in the delivery of live sports can be found in this February’s launch of the World Wrestling Entertainment’s WWE Network. The WWE Network is a subscription-only streaming Internet video service that broadcasts professional wrestling events that were previously only available on cable and satellite television. The $9.99 a month subscription provides subscribers with access to WWE’s pay-per-view events, network original series, as well as a catalog of vintage wrestling programs from the past four decades.

Open Source, Dynamic Linking and Licensing Consideration for Developers

Posted April 25, 2014 by Rob Ellis 0

Introduction:

There is often confusion among software developers regarding the licensing of open source code. Questions center on what can be done with open source code and what is considered a derivative work. One particular area of confusion arises when the derivative work uses static or dynamic links when compiling the source code. This distinction is critical and implicates different licensing requirements dependent upon this decision. It is important for developers to have an understanding of the basic principles of the most popular open source licenses and how static versus dynamic links can affect the end result from a licensing perspective.

GNU GPL

The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or GPL) is the most widely used free software license. It grants end users the freedom to use, study, copy and modify a piece of software. Originally written by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation in 1989, the GPL is now in its third iteration with the GPLv3. The GPL is based on the idea that nobody should be restricted by the software they use. To meet this goal, every user should have the freedom to: use the software for any purpose; change the software to suit a particular need; share the software; and share changes to the software. To this end, GPL-licensed software requires that source code be made available to all users. Furthermore, users have the right to use and modify that source code. Should those modifications be distributed, the source code of that distribution must also be licensed under the GPL.

GitHub and Developers: The perils of licensing after code release.

Posted March 3, 2014 by Rob Ellis 0

The licensing practices of open source software developers have often centered around copyleft or permissive licenses that provide free public access to a project’s source code with only a few restrictions on how the code may be used. These licenses often require that any derivative work created from the source code must also be licensed under similar terms. Websites, GitHub being a prominent example, allow developers to post their code so that others can download the master code, make changes to it and push those changes back up to the master copy. Sites like these are described as “distributed reversion control repositories” (DRCRs). With advancements in DRCRs, some trends show that today’s open source developers do not take into account licensing considerations until well after a project has been created and made available to the public. Labeled the POSS (Post Open Source Software) approach in a 2012 tweet by James Governor of RedMonk, many open-source developers are now skipping past licensing and governance considerations regarding code, and simply posting their work to sites like GitHub. This trend may offer more risks than opportunities regarding the ability of the code to be adopted into the OS community, and may expose code developers to greater liability regarding non-disclaimer of warranties.

Threading the needle: Apple Fined for allowing in-app purchase transactions without obtaining account-holder consent.

Posted February 10, 2014 by Rob Ellis 0

While Apple Inc. has been at the leading edge of the app revolution, it is also out front in setting the guidelines for app purchases. According to the FTC last week, it crossed that line to the tune of $32.5M. That’s the amount that Apple agreed to refund to settle an FTC complaint that the company charged for children’s in-app purchases without parental consent. At issue was the practice by which Apple allowed iPhone users unlimited in-app purchases for 15 minutes after providing initial consent for a single purchase.

Apple Inc. has been instrumental in solidifying the ubiquity and prominence of applications or “apps” in everyday life. With the release of the groundbreaking iPhone in 2007 and its corresponding App Store in 2008, users became familiar with the idea of using and purchasing apps for specific uses. From news feeds and video players, to single and multi-player games, apps came to represent a download that, with the simple tap of the thumb, would add another tool, resource or game to a device.

Mobile App Privacy Policies Should Not Keep Users in the Dark

Posted January 9, 2014 by Rob Ellis 0

Privacy policies have long been the domain of the desktop web experience. For anyone motivated enough to seek them out, they are commonly found in a utility bar at the top of a web page, or buried somewhere in the site’s footer. The policy typically governs what the site owner does with users’ information – from personal information actively submitted through a form, to broader information passively attained such as browser type or device, and how the site uses cookies and similar technologies to track users’ online activity.

With the explosion of mobile devices, app developers face a much broader scope of information that privacy policies must address. With the treasure trove of information available via users’ mobile devices, developers must take great pains to detail what information is gathered and how that information is used. Privacy policies not only inform a user-base and foster good-will, but also ensure that the application does not abuse its access to information and run afoul of the law.

Legal Considerations for Application Developers| Determining Who Owns the Code?

Posted November 29, 2013 by Rob Ellis 0

With the proliferation of mobile devices in the past few years, application developers may now target their services and offerings to an ever-widening, always-connected audience. These apps involve the interplay of code and data in new and innovative ways. Whether an app developer begins the project informally in a garage, or as part of a team of developers, a host of intellectual property (IP) concerns exists from the inception of the idea, to the day the app is available for distribution in an app store. One simple, and often overlooked aspect of development is this: who owns the code?

Copyright and Computer Code
17 USC Section 117 of the Copyright Act states computer code, or software, is considered copyrightable material, providing it protection from unauthorized reproduction or distribution. This protection serves to reward innovators for their works, allowing them to benefit from their creations for a limited time. For an app developer, this means that the code created from the inception phase to completion is subject to copyright protection. Unless explicitly stated, it is not always clear just who retains ownership rights to the code.

MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC