Online Access (OA) is a major online service provider of Internet access and related services in the United States, providing connection to the Internet for a low monthly fee. In addition, OA provides other content-based services such as stock quotes, chat rooms, and news briefs. OA markets itself to consumers as being easy to use, family-oriented, and the Internet service provider (ISP) with the fastest connections and least wait time while "surfing" the Web. This marketing has been very successful. OA currently has more than 1 million subscribers and expects that number to double within the year.
You are OA’s general counsel. You have recently been forwarded a letter from a novelist whose name you have never heard. She claims that one of your subscribers has copied several chapters of her soon-to-be-published novel and has made them available on his home page, which is hosted on OA’s server. The novelist demands that this subscriber’s account be closed and the home page shut down. If this is not done immediately, she threatens to sue for copyright infringement not only the subscriber but also OA. This poses a dilemma: you don’t want OA subscribers using their accounts to infringe copyrights or otherwise break the law, but you also don’t want to generate ill will by erroneously closing down subscribers’ accounts on a mere allegation of wrongdoing. Furthermore, you are uncertain of whether the law would expect OA to constantly monitor the activities of one million subscribers – a task you don’t think could be accomplished even if you had twice the personnel. However, you need to act on this matter quickly.
In deciding whether OA is or should be vulnerable to suit by the novelist and other Web authors, you may find it helpful to sample these resources. Click here
Then, if you are interested in discussing the issues raised by this problem and the associated materials, go to the virtual classroom.
As if the potential copyright liability was not enough of a problem, you have a meeting tomorrow with the general counsel of ZBC, a multibillion-dollar television network. ZBC indirectly generates substantial revenue for OA by providing a news brief service that delivers headlines to subscribers’ home pages daily. Recent market studies have shown that OA subscribers listed the availability of this service as one of the main reasons they chose OA rather than another online service provider. If subscribers are interested in reading the in-depth story behind the headline, and they often are, they can click on a link which takes them to ZBC’s web site.
Nearly 60% of OA’s subscribers access the ZBC site daily and this has caused major slowdowns on the network, building a bad reputation for OA when subscribers have to wait too long. To alleviate the burden on the network, OA webmasters have begun caching the ZBC site on a different server. This way, subscribers don’t need to access ZBC directly and wait for the information to be sent, they simply retrieve a copy of the site that has been stored on another server. All of the processing happens behind the scenes and the user does not know that they are not receiving the information directly from ZBC. The cached page is refreshed twice daily. Since implementing the caching practice, congestion has noticeably lessened.
However, ZBC is unhappy. In a phone call to you yesterday, ZBC’s counsel explained that there were several problems. First, he mentioned that, by caching a copy of the site, OA could be subject to copyright infringement.
Second, he also stated that OA was open to a possible trademark infringement lawsuit because, even though the cached copy was refreshed twice daily, it didn’t always coincide with the timing of breaking news posted on the site. He alleged that OA was causing damage to ZBC’s name by providing subscribers with stale news.
Finally, and you believe this is his greatest concern, he told you that since OA began caching the site, ZBC has noticed a sharp drop in reported "hits" to the site. This is causing certain ZBC advertisers to consider advertising on a site viewed by more people. ZBC knows that this drop is attributable to the fact that 600,000 OA subscribers per day are now accessing the cached copy on the OA server, rather than directly hitting ZBC’s site. He wants you to implement some process that will allow ZBC to collect its vital demographic information, or cease caching the site. He hinted at a possible unfair competition suit if neither was done immediately.
You know that no standard has been set to provide the information on hits to the cached site, although it could be done. You don’t want to lose your affiliation with ZBC. You also know that this kind of suit has never been filed yet, and the resulting publicity could jeopardize other business arrangements. However, you don’t want to take a step you’re unsure of, and you know that line traffic problems are only going to worsen as your subscriber base grows. How should you approach ZBC’s counsel at your meeting?
In deciding whether OA should accede to ZBC’s demands, stay with current practices, or offer an alternative arrangement, you may find it helpful to sample these resources. Click here
Then, if you are interested in discussing the issues raised by this problem and the associated materials, go to the virtual classroom.