Jay points us to the news that Ubisoft is offering up a new video game for the Wii, in Europe only, called “We Dare,” which appears to be a ridiculously awkwardness-inducing game designed to try to make people engage in sexually suggestive activities with one another. Since the game is only being offered in Europe, the advertisement for the game, which the company placed on its own YouTube account, is blocked for viewing in the US — though, ridiculously, it says this is so for “copyright” reasons. Still, it’s not hard for people to find proxies to view the video (took me a few seconds to convince YouTube I was watching the video from Europe). It seems sort of pointless to block the video from US audiences, even if they can’t order the game. The ad itself is hilariously painful to watch, and the comments on the video (also only available if you’re “outside” the US) are almost universally mocking Ubisoft for this game concept. Anyway, if you’re inside the US or don’t know how to use a proxy, you won’t be able to watch the video below. And you might be better off for it:
As some of you might know, Germany’s defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, resigned yesterday after admitting that he plagiarized his PhD dissertation. Pitiful, I know.
Gregor Aisch visualized Guttenberg’s dissertation, highlighting the plagiarized portions. The dark red represents complete or masked plagiarism, while the lighter red represents different categories of plagiarism. Longer bars are for normal text, and small bars represent footnote lines. Not sure why there seems to be as much footnote as there is normal text.
In any case, at least Guttenberg wrote some of it. But still sad.
Freelancers need contracts. Going in without one often ends painfully–freelancers may find their clients have disappeared off the face of the earth, and their checkbook has gone with them. It’s a scenario that is all too common.
Unfortunately, getting a contract together can be pricey business if you go to a lawyer and have one drawn up. While that may be the best way to get a contract that’s tailored for the specifics of your business, there are a bunch of contract templates around the web that you can use while you’re getting started.
1. The Shane and Peter Inc. Contract
“So, when the day comes in which the client understands thing one way and our contract said something else, who is actually correct? Technically our contract is the final word. It is a valuable safety net. But that is its secondary purpose. When it comes down to running a long term healthy business, working with a client is much like being married. It is a long running set of compromises. My wife often says things to me (while I am focused and working) which I never hear. Later when we find ourselves arguing, who is at fault? Is it her fault for thinking I was engaged when I clearly was not? Was it my fault, as I did not take the time to stop what I was doing and giving her my full attention. In one short word: Yes. But does it actually matter whose fault it is? Not really. What is vital is that communication resumes.”
2. The Mayhem Studios Contract
“Before you start any project or do any kind of work. Always get a signed contract and a 50% deposit. A contract protects you and your client from any miscommunications. A 50% deposit insures that the client is serious about working with you. Consult an attorney once you have drafted a contract, to cover all your bases.”
3. The AIGA Contract
“It does not take a one-size-fits-all approach, and it is not an extensive pre-printed document where you simply fill in the blanks. Instead, this agreement acknowledges that most design firms develop their own custom proposal document for each project and are looking for an appropriate set of terms and conditions to attach to it. When put together and signed, the custom proposal document and its attached terms and conditions comprise the binding agreement with the client. With this in mind, the focus of the AIGA Standard Form of Agreement is on those terms and conditions.”
4. The Reencoded Contract
“A good contract is necessary to every freelance web designer. Without a contract, there’s no legal requirement for the other party to pay you upon completion of work (at the very least difficult to prove). Here are important parts to include in your own web design contract.”
5. Andy Clarke’s Contract Killer
“Maybe you’re a gun for hire, a one man army with your back to the wall and nothing standing between you and the line at a soup kitchen but your wits. Maybe you work for the agency, or like me you run one of your own. Either way, when times get tough and people get nasty, you’ll need more than a killer smile to save you. You’ll need a killer contract too.”
Eric Goldman has the details on an interesting trademark dispute involving Facebook. It involves two separate day spas, who both go by the name “Complexions,” but in different regional areas, so there was no real problem in the past. But thanks to a global internet, things get trickier. One of the spas sent a takedown notice to Facebook claiming “copyright” infringement of the Facebook fan page of the other Complexions. As Goldman notes, the claim of copyright was almost certainly in error, as it probably meant trademark (though, we’re seeing trademark holders exploit this confusion regularly these days, to pretend that the DMCA and its takedown process covers trademark too).
The Complexions who lost its fan page has gone to court to get a declaratory judgment that it didn’t infringe against the other Complexions… and is seeking to have the court order Facebook to put the page back up. As Goldman points out, even if it makes sense for Facebook to put the page back up, the court almost certainly cannot legally mandate that, since Facebook is protected in taking down whatever content it wishes to take down:
The issue is so interesting because the DJ plaintiff’s desired relief should be categorically unavailable. A court can’t order a web service to restore an user’s account/content for at least two independent reasons. First, such an order clearly violates the First Amendment– the order would impermissibly circumscribe the service’s freedom of speech and the press. Second, even if you don’t want to get into the constitutional debate, IMO Congress resolved this issue in 47 USC 230(c)(2), which immunizes websites’ “filtering” decisions. If Facebook takes down a fan page because it thinks the page is trademark infringing, 230(c)(2) says Facebook still has the full editorial discretion not to publish the page even if it later learns that the page wasn’t trademark infringing at all.
A court *can* order the IP owner to stop sending takedown notices. See, e.g., Biosafe-Hawks, Design Furnishings, and Amaretto. My hope is that a web service would listen carefully to such orders in deciding if/how to remediate its prior responses to the takedown notices. My hope is that web services would also build in enough due process to their private adjudicatory processes so its users can fairly combat false takedown notices without needing judicial intervention at all. However, it remains fair game for the web service to make “bad” choices on both fronts, though we as consumers should draw our own conclusions about those who do.
Separately, Goldman points out that the suing Complexions is also claiming “false advertising,” in noting that the Complexions who issued the takedown also sent friend/fan requests to its fans. He predicts that we’ll start seeing more lawsuits over attempts to “poach” Facebook fans.
