Topics: The Internet & The Law - 61 results

  During a divorce, no good can come from bad-mouthing your spouse on Twitter or Facebook. Lawyers.com journalist Ed Alpern reports on how the tools of discovery in matrimonial cases have evolved. In the past, divorce attorneys gathered information using subpoenas for witnesses and documents. But now attorneys do a lot of investigation online. Divorce attorney Jacqueline Newman, a partner at Berkman, Bottger, Newman & Rodd in New York City, advises clients not to post anything on Facebook that they …

A federal court in Tennessee has refused to dismiss lawsuits against the owner and operator of the Coyote Ugly Saloon, where employees say tips are pooled illegally and they were retaliated against for suing over it. The retaliation suit came long after the original tip-pooling case was filed.   Budding Buddhism: Bad Topic for the Blog Bartenders at the Nashville and San Antonio locations of the saloon, which is known for its bartenders’ and female customers’ dancing on the bar, …

Joining a handful of other states that limit employer access to social media accounts, New Mexico on Apr. 5 passed a law forbidding employers from demanding passwords from prospective employees.   Job Applicants Only Under the new law, employers are forbidden from requesting or requiring job applicants to provide access to their social media accounts. “Joining Maryland, Illinois, California, Michigan and Utah, New Mexico is now the sixth state to prohibit employers from mandating access to a job applicant’s password-protected …

Digital music cannot be sold secondhand over the Internet, even if the seller deletes the original file, a federal judge ruled last week. The precedent-setting decision handed down by a district court in New York has implications for other digital goods like books and movies as well. “Courts have not previously addressed whether the unauthorized transfer of a digital music file over the Internet – where only one file exists before and after the transfer – constitutes reproduction within the …

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the woman whom the recording industry martyred with a $222,000 damages award after several trials for stealing music online, has reached the end of her legal rope. The U.S. Supreme Court on Mar. 18 refused to hear her argument that the damages were unconstitutionally excessive.   Excessive Damages? The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to overturn the damages award in September, which meant Thomas-Rasset owed record companies including Capitol Records, Sony BMG, Warner Bros. Records, and …