Heitner Legal
Who is the rightful owner of a social media account? This has become a very important question no matter whether the account is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok. Disputes commonly arise surrounding the ownership of social media accounts when employees who had access to and used those accounts during their employment are no longer […]
In April 2011, I had an article titled, You May Not “Like” This Title: Everything Stored On Facebook Is Discoverable, published in the NYU Law Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. The premise is that enjoying the openness of Facebook may come at an unexpected cost, especially for those who do not understand how the […]
How much money is a Twitter follower worth, what about the value of an individual Tweet, and who actually owns a Twitter account? Those are a few questions that may be answered if a lawsuit that was filed on July 15, 2011 in the United States District Court Northern District of California ends up going to […]
French Englightenment writer, historian and philosopher François-Marie Arouet (also known as Voltaire) once stated, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” If Voltaire were alive today, he would likely be very displeased that many institutions of higher education are banning certain groups of athletes from […]
While many women believe that a “diamond is forever,” what do judges think about Tweets made on the social networking site Twitter? Are statements made within Tweets stuck in a cache for eternity? Upon clicking “Tweet,” has it been published? Does it matter in a defamation case? Last week, it was revealed that Bill Spooner, […]
On October 24, 1999, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). The UDRP incorporated by contract into registration agreements for .com, .org, .net and some other domain names. The focus was on regulating bad faith cybersquatting on trademarks. Clause 4 of the UDRP discusses the Mandatory […]
Last Wednesday, junior Declan Sullivan was recording Notre Dame football’s practice from the top of a hydraulic lift before he fell to his death. He was doing his job, videotaping practice from an aerial view so that the football players would later be able to see what they needed to correct before game day. Then a […]