By Krista on Aug 23, 2006 in Social Media, Web 2.0 | 0 Comments
If you’ve watched The Colbert Report over the last week, you probably know that the Hungarian government is conducting an online poll to name a national bridge. After the media picked up on the fact that Chuck Norris was leading by a significant margin, Stephen Colbert picked it up and asked fans to help him win the vote.
Over the course of the next week, his vote total went from less than 2000 votes to over 17 million, thanks, in part, to his computer savvy fanbase who developed a script to repeatedly submit votes. The discussion over on the discussion forums at Colbert Nation is a fascinating look at how easy it is to hack a website’s voting system with minimal effort. Read the rest
By Krista on Aug 13, 2006 in Legal, Web 2.0, YouTube | 0 Comments
I wrote previously about the lawsuit YouTube faces for showing copyrighted video clips of Robert Tur’s 1992 LA riot footage. This week’s BusinessWeek (Aug 7, 2006) addresses the revenue generating concerns.
As I mentioned previously, most lawyers seem to agree that YouTube is protected by copyright law as long as it responds to the copyright owners’ requests to remove their content. A side question seems to be whether it’s ok to run advertising beside the videos. Read the rest
By Krista on Aug 1, 2006 in Social Media, Trends, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment
Tonight, Stephen Colbert discussed how Wikipedia is influencing culture on his show. After saying something to the effect of
I love Wikipedia: any site that has a longer entry on truthiness than on Lutherans has its priorities straight.
He then went on to make a point that Wikipedia reports “facts” as a collection of ideas that a group of people agree with. Read the rest
By Krista on Jul 19, 2006 in Legal, Social Media, Web 2.0, YouTube | 1 Comment
The Los Angeles News Service and its owner Robert Tur have sued YouTube for posting copyrighted footage on their website. Specifically, someone posted a video of the beating of trucker Reginald Denny during the 1992 LA riots.
Tur, who apparently has a reputation as “an active litigant”, is asking for $150,000 for each infringement (it was viewed 1000 times) - or $150 million in damages! He decided to sue YouTube rather than the person that upload because Read the rest
By Krista on Jul 1, 2006 in Legal, Social Media, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment
What responsibilities do web sites have to ensure what their visitors post is accurate? That’s the issue at the heart of a new lawsuit targeted at DontDateHimGirl.com, a website that allows scorned women to post pictures and comments about men who cheat.
Pittsburgh lawyer Todd Hollis filed a complaint on Thursday after anonymous postings on the site accused him of dating multiple women at once and spreading a sexually transmitted disease. When he asked website owner, Tasha Joseph, to remove the posts, she refused. Read the rest
