Author Archives: John DiGiacomo

In 1998, the US Congress brought United States copyright laws into the digital age when it passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA provides guidelines for handling copyrighted information that is stored or transmitted online. An important component of the DMCA is the “safe harbor” clause.

In a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court disagreed with the Court of Appeals and handed a victory to Spokeo.com in their fight against Thomas Robins. Spokeo is a data broker that offers its subscribers access to its database, which contains personal information about hundreds of thousands of people.

Who owns the rights to a name? Natural instinct leads many to believe that the bearer of a name owns it. Unfortunately, in the world of trademark and cyber-squatting law, that isn’t always the case. Some celebrities have taken proactive approaches to protect the image that surrounds their names. However, website domains are a different […]

Once the United Kingdom finally parts ways with the European Union, it still won’t be completely clear of the governing General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Generally, the GDPR is meant to strengthen and unify data protection for European Union (EU) citizens and residing companies. However, the GDPR still controls fines and regulations of non-EU companies if […]

This week, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality rules. The net neutrality rules in place prevent internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking, disrupting, or diminishing internet traffic that may not be profitable. The rules effectively classify high-speed internet as a public utility, like water or […]

Recently there has been a major boom in crowdfunding across the internet, both for causes and for products. Kickstarter, for example, is a site where anyone can “invest” on a product that is being developed, which usually results in that person receiving the product at a discount once it is fully funded and produced. GoFundMe […]

In this episode of the Asked and Answered podcast, we discuss what you should expect when being deposed. We also discuss politicians and their domain names, and the new federal Defend Trade Secrets Act.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that may provide a bright line rule for one of the hardest issues in copyright law today: whether clothing designs (such as stripes on a uniform) fall under the protection of copyright law. The parties in this case are two cheerleading uniform companies fighting over where […]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act gives the FTC the power to prevent and punish unfair business practices in all aspects of business within the United States. The FTC usually involves itself when companies purposefully mislead the public in facts about the company’s business. Recently, the FTC published its first case regarding the Asia-Pacific Economic […]

There is currently no federal law regulating the distribution of revenge porn, also known as nonconsensual pornography (NCP). The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative has created a model for what the federal government could eventually adopt. The model essentially lays out that if a person knowingly distributes sexually explicit material about another person, knowing they did […]