Peter Brody and Mariel Goetz have published a great article in Bloomberg BNA about the Ten Things You Need to Know About Social Media and Intellectual Property in 2013. They list the 10 things as:
1.Be on the lookout for the next Pinterest.
2.Determine the level of social media interactivity that works best for you and your business.
3.Determine an appropriate policy regarding ownership of user generated content.
4.Proactively address ownership and use of business-related social media accounts by employees.

In early February, I was interviewed by Investor’s Business Daily for an article titled “Facebook Keeps User Data Private After Death” written by Tony Kontzer. The article focuses on who is entitled to your social media postings after your death. This is uncharted territory as digital assets are considered to be part of the estate of the deceased, but what happens when social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are involved. To read the

Do you ask your clients if they know what happens to their digital assets once they die? Do you know what happens to your own digital assets when you die? Digital assets are those which exist in a solely electronic and non-tangible manner such as email, digital photos, online banking accounts and records, media libraries (such as iTunes), and social media accounts such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, as well as the content posted on the accounts. In this age of social media, online banking and bill paying services, it is critical that your clients think about what will happen to these digital assets and plan ahead for how to handle them after their passing.

Most states, including Washington, have not passed laws (yet) to address digital assets. The states that have passed laws mostly address email, and even those laws vary from state to state. But digital assets include so much more than just email, and most clients would likely feel differently about how to handle different types of online accounts. Some accounts clients might want to have canceled immediately; others, such as digital photo albums, clients may want to survive and be transferred to a
family member.

Have you done your social media estate planning? If you have a social media profiles set up, you should create a plan for how you want those profiles handled after your death. Just like your real life identity, you now need to plan for the handling and wrapping up the affairs of your online identity.

The USA.gov blog post How and Why You Should Write a Social Media Will advises that you appoint someone that you trust and provide them with your passwords and log-ins and instructions for what to do with your online accounts. This person will essentially act as your online executor and will be responsible for closing your email accounts, social media profiles and blogs after you die.

The USA.gov blog recommends the following actions to help you write your social media will:

Social media is still a media platform and advertisers need to remember that disclosures are still required. Nutrisystem is using Pinterest (a social media platform that has been discussed on this blog frequently) to pin photos as part of an advertising campaign. However, Nutrisystem’s captions only contained the information on the person in the photo (name and number of pound lost). The disclaimer (that this loss is unusual and the normal loss is 1 to 2 pounds per week) was missing.

As the use of social media by companies has become main stream, it is important to provide guidance to clients on the legal risks that accompany the use of social media to promote their businesses. The legal risks can be broadly grouped into the following categories:

1. Employment: As discussed previously on this blog previously,employers need to be careful when investigating potential and existing employees through social media. The potential to discoverprotected information about an employee is very high and should not be risked. In addition, the National Relations Board (NLRB) has recently released an advisory memo that states an employees posts on social media are protected if the posts discuss wages, hours, and working conditions with co-corkers and others. Employers need to be very careful to remain up to date on the current state of employment law as it relates to social media.

2. Contractual Issues: Using sites such as Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others all require a user to accept their terms and conditions to have an account. If your company is advertising on these sites, make sure that the terms and conditions that you agree to for advertising are in line with the terms your company can live with; otherwise you may run afoul of the requirements of the social media site and end up with your entire account being removed. In addition, if you have an employee running your social media campaign for you, make sure that employee is well versed in both the requirements of the FTC for your company and the terms and conditions of the social media site the employee is using.

Pinterest is a social media site that allows users to create and manage collections of images surrounding their interests and hobbies. It is like a virtual bulletin board or scrapbook, where you “pin” images for inspiration and sharing. Many users are unaware that these shared images are protected by copyright law. Pinterest boards can be shared with followers and fellow pinners; pinned content can be “repinned” or commented upon. The popular site launched in beta in March 2010 and reached it’s one millionth unique visitor by July 2011. In 2012, Pinterest increased its site traffic by 52 percent between January and February alone.

Cold Brew Labs, the owner of Pinterest, came under fire earlier this year after its terms and conditions were exposed and discussed across the internet as inflammatory and contrary to copyright law. In an unusual step, Cold Brew Labs listened to the criticism and released new terms and conditions that go into effect on April 6, 2012.

Do these new terms and conditions address and fix the problems? This article compares the original and new versions.

From the Oracle Blog this morning: The proliferation of social media has changed the way that organizations and consumers interact. Vitrue’s social marketing platform helps organizations enhance their social marketing efforts to the next level of social engagement by giving brands the ability to scale across multiple social networks, target messages from global to local, create unique and consistent brand experiences, and publish content that engages fans and drives leads. Together, Oracle and Vitrue plan

Nordstrom may have been in business for 111 years, but it refuses to be left behind when it comes to staying on top of current trends and what its customers want and expect.  While almost everyone knows Nordstrom for its outstanding customer service, it is also becoming more and more known for adopting new technology and being on the forefront of social media. According to David Hatch at U.S. News Business: Selected by U.S. News as

After several weeks of negative press over copyright, liability issues and negative images, it seems as though Cold Brew Labs, the owner of Pinterest, has bent to the pressure around the internet and in the press and announced a change to their terms and conditions. An email went out to all Pinterest account owners on March 24th as follows: