Company Caught Downloading Competitor's Software Just Has To Pay The Fee To Buy One License

Here's an interesting case highlighted by Eric Goldman, involving two competing software companies. One of the companies, Real View, downloaded an infringing copy of the other company's (20-20 Technologies) software via a file sharing network. It seems this part is not contested. Real View then used the software to learn about what 20-20 was offering, and modified its own software to include some similar features, and then used a different business model which undercut 20-20's business model quite a bit. 20-20 sued for infringement both over the download and over the software. The jury, quite reasonably, said that the new software didn't violate anyone's copyright, as reverse engineering similar features to a competitor is not infringement. However, since the initial download was infringing,...

Read more »

Posted in: Caught,Company,Competitors,Downloading,License,Software

Can A Company Keep An Employee's LinkedIn Account After They're No Longer Employed?

Legal Issuesby Mike MasnickFri, Dec 30th 2011 4:50amVenkat Balasubramani has the story of a bizarre fight between a company, Sawabeh Information Services, and the founders of Edcomm, a company that Sawabeh bought in 2010. A few months later, the... Filed Under:contacts, linda eagle, ownership, social media Companies:edcomm, linkedin, sawabeh information services, siscom Permalink.Venkat Balasubramani has the story of a bizarre fight between a company, Sawabeh Information Services, and the founders of Edcomm, a company that Sawabeh bought in 2010. A few months later, the founders of Edcomm were fired, and the lawsuits commenced. There are a variety of issues here, and Venkat's post goes through most of them in detail, but I wanted to focus on just one: the fight over who gets to control Dr....

Read more »

Posted in: Account,After,Company,Employed,Employees,LinkedIn,Longer,Theyre

GoDaddy Officially Has Name Removed From Judiciary's List Of SOPA Supporters

There was some concern that GoDaddy had only said they were pulling their support for SOPA, but hadn't actually done so. However, the company is now pointing out that it officially asked to be removed from the Judiciary Committee's list of SOPA supporters and that's now been done. I will note, however, that despite the claims that it is no longer supporting SOPA, the Graphic Artists Guild is still listed. Add to this the Judiciary Committee having to scrub the list of a bunch of law firms who never agreed to support the bill, as well as companies like Gibson Guitar, and it seems that the Judiciary Committee is going to be kept busy whittling down this list. Of course, it's unclear why the Judiciary Committee only puts up a list of (rapidly shrinking) supporters. If it wanted to present the...

Read more »

Posted in: GoDaddy,Judiciarys,Officially,Removed,Supporters

The Latest Entrant In 'How Not To Do Marketing' In An Online World: Ocean Marketing Fail

One of the key points that we've been making for years is that, in an online world, pissing off (or simply not caring about) customers is no longer a viable business strategy. A good business today recognizes that the customers' best interests are also the company's best interests. If you don't realize that... well, then you get into a situation like Paul Christoforo and Ocean Marketing that's taken the internet world by storm today. It begins with a must read email thread posted at Penny Arcade. Seriously, just go read the whole thing. The short version for those who don't read it, is that a guy, Dave, who pre-ordered some gaming controllers that hadn't arrived, emailed Ocean Marketing and got back less than optimal customer service from Christoforo, who runs Ocean Marketing. Actually, he...

Read more »

Posted in: Entrant,Latest,Marketing,Ocean,Online,World

Macs no longer immune to viruses, experts say

SAN FRANCISCO — Benjamin Daines was browsing the Web when he clicked on a series of links that promised pictures of an unreleased update to his computer’s operating system. Instead, a window opened on the screen and strange commands ran as if the machine was under the control of someone — or something — else. Daines was the victim of a computer virus. Such headaches are hardly unusual on PCs running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system. Daines, however, was using a Mac — an Apple Computer Inc. machine often touted as being immune to such risks. He and at least one other person who clicked on the links were infected by what security experts call the first-ever virus for Mac OS X, the operating system that has shipped with every Mac sold since 2001 and has survived virtually...

Read more »

YouTube's 1 Trillion Playbacks Set Stage for Display Ad Growth

YouTube counted more than 1 trillion playbacks on the video-sharing site this year, or roughly 140 views for every person on Earth, Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) video sharing Website said. The Website, which said 48 hours of video are uploaded to the Website every minute, revealed its most-watched videos of 2011. The site gauged global view counts of popular videos uploaded throughout the year. Rebecca Black's "Friday," video led the top 10 videos watched worldwide. YouTube rewarded her by letting her host this year's "YouTube Rewind" look back at the most-watched videos of the year. YouTube isn't serving all that video content without some serious advertising. The video site also shared the most-watched ads on YouTube in 2011. This Volkswagen ad led the top 10 most-watched ads, while this...

Read more »

Posted in: Display,Growth,Playbacks,Stage,Trillion,YouTubes

Google Tablet in Six Months: Schmidt

As the tablet market continues to expand, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt let slip to the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera that the company was planning to directly manufacture tablet devices ?of the highest quality? and mentioned a six-month window for production. Google?s Android operating system is already running the tablets of major manufacturers like Motorola, HTC and Lenovo. The Google tablet would likely be marketed under the company's Nexus brand, which also includes smartphones. The technology blog DigiTimes posted an article Dec. 26 that quoted unnamed sources in the PC industry in Taiwan as saying that Google?s potential launch of its own tablet could ?cause conflict with branded PC vendors who are cooperating with Google to launch Ice Cream Sandwich-based tablet...

Read more »

Posted in: Google,Months,Schmidt,Tablet

Do we really need antivirus software?

I honestly believe that we live in a very special time. A lot of technological breakthroughs are happening even as I write this post. But I refuse to believe that we have put a man on the moon, built an electric car, developed the most intricate GPS devices, but haven't been able to keep hackers out of our computing environment. What? A lot of hype and campaign dollars are geared toward the Fear Factor of Viruses and Spyware/Malware. Just properly knowing the basic facts about your computer can save you thousands of dollars for the life of your computer. Hint: your computer is a disc.   I stopped using Anti-Virus...

Read more »

Perfect PC 24/7

What is a Perfect PC? You can build the best PC on the planet, have the fastest processors, the quickest HD speed, but it all means nothing if your machine isn't equipped to deal with an all out FAILURE. Introducing the Perfect PC 24/7 Guidebook; software and solutions all in one. ...

Read more »