Cyber Liability Insurance

[lucia]

If you don't post the content on your  site, you can rely on the DMCA for protection provided you registered a DMCA agent.

Nice guy-- I want you to reread what Oscar said.

I also wouldn't be surprised good cyber liability insurance companies didn't require this-- sort of like banks extending mortgages require home owners insurance.

If your in the cyber business, let third parties post stuff to the extent that you are considering insurance for what they might post, you should certainly file a DMCA agent.

Of course I know I didn't follow your instructions to provide a good cyber liability insurance.  But then, my impression is Matt and the ELI team are the only ones who can moderate us.  And I judge that it's better for this thread to contain useful guidance for people who might, in future, come across the thread. A list of "good" cyber liability insurance agents will not benefit them as much as being told to register a DMCA agent.

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

Well said lucia.

If you don't post the content on your  site, you can rely on the DMCA for protection provided you registered a DMCA agent.

Nice guy-- I want you to reread what Oscar said.

I also wouldn't be surprised good cyber liability insurance companies didn't require this-- sort of like banks extending mortgages require home owners insurance.

If your in the cyber business, let third parties post stuff to the extent that you are considering insurance for what they might post, you should certainly file a DMCA agent.

Of course I know I didn't follow your instructions to provide a good cyber liability insurance.  But then, my impression is Matt and the ELI team are the only ones who can moderate us.  And I judge that it's better for this thread to contain useful guidance for people who might, in future, come across the thread. A list of "good" cyber liability insurance agents will not benefit them as much as being told to register a DMCA agent.

[Moe Hacken]

Liability insurance is a necessary evil to those who want to operate a business, but it has a huge downside: it feeds trolls.

This is why a lot of the extortion letters include suggestions for their victims to drop into the fetal position and hand the letter over to their respective insurance companies.

Liability insurance has caused at least one Ivy-League-educated doctor friend of mine drop the medical career to go right back to Harvard to get an MBA — so he could get paid as a hospital CEO instead of paying to deliver babies and save lives.

Having said that, I don't have a suggestion for you or anyone about liability insurance, MrNiceGuy. Sorry about it.

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

I thought it was very good and helpful, so thank you

Well I cannot answer your question. But I'm gonna post anyway. (Remember, I'm the big "free speech" advocate.) So just skip this post.

Okay, now that the original poster has skipped over this post, let me just share something with anyone else who comes across this thread with a similar issue. If you have other users visiting your site and they are posting content, you cannot be held libel for their infringement. However to protect yourself, you need to file a DMCA agent and that costs $105. Please read this: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/dmca-righthaven-loophole/

Too bad the original poster didn't read this. He may have even issued a polite "thank you."

[aimiyo]

Take it from me , liability insurance may be a good thing for a "disaster" but it definitely promotes something  other than the right thing like troll food. In medicine,  it took me years to learn not to report every patient who was a little upset at something and threatened law suit. What would happen was I would report it like a scared rabbit, then this law firm would get assigned the "non case" by the insurance company and they had to earn their 25,000 for the firm and the opposing law firm would also earn their 25,000. Then they would settle when there was not a case to begin with,  making me look bad. Once I learned to tell the lawyer who called me about Mr or Miss expect too much,  that "NO I was not going to report the alleged made up story of how bad I was to a malpractice carrier and if they thought they REALLY had a malpractice case then SUE me ---I never would hear from them again. I don't commit malpractice and once that incentive to earn 25,000 went away from either my assigned lawyer or opposing council so did the allege malpractice claims.  Like Duh,,,,Simple. I do carry malpractice in case some thing major would happen, BUT not for the nuisance value of feeding lawyers ( sorry Oscar). That took me ten years to learn unfortunately and a lot of trouble with petty crap.

The problem is with business insurance,  the person who has the insurance usually does not have the provision like I do in medical malpractice where one can report or not report it to the carrier and it does not affect the payout. In business insurance if you do not report a claim then the carrier  may be off the hook, not true with my malpractice carrier. I have that provision to settle or not --- My decision.

[SoylentGreen]

This has actually turned into a good discussion, with many great points being made.

I'm a bit concerned that the insurance concept will cause trolling activities to be seen as some sort of "cost of doing business" going forward.
It's like having special insurance to pay off people that have an old car with a big dent in it that accuse you of colliding with them.
Even though there's not a scratch in your own car.  I mean, piss off.

Look, you can get really good images for about two dollars each or even less if you use many images.  Just keep your license and receipt.
That's your "insurance"; keep your documentation.  Oh, yes, and the DMCA agent.

Hope that OP is still reading; all this could save him/her thousands.

S.G.

[Moe Hacken]

http://memes.icanhascheezburger.com/2012/04/30/advice-animals-memes-business-cat-and-a-health-plan-for-each-one-too/


MrNiceGuy's question is certainly valid and worthy of discussion. This trolling thing is getting uglier every day and there's scores of asshats out there who will be enticed to jump in and try their hand at the trolling business when they graduate from lousy law schools and pass the bar with the lowest score possible, after which they will still get to add the term "esquire" to their name.

Having said that, and since the ELI community has been going gaga over memes lately, here's an interesting issue for us to ponder: Are internets memes subject to copyright and trademark laws?

http://www.quora.com/Copyright-Law/Are-internet-memes-subject-to-copyright-and-trademark-laws

I hope I'm not being a total buzzkill again. 

[SoylentGreen]

I think that these things always come back full circle to registration, and protection of copyright.
That is, if the work isn't registered prior to publishing, and then protected with at lease C&D requests/DMCA takedowns, then it's not subject to "laws" that are actually meaningful.
Saying that something is "copyrighted" at the moment of creation has no value for practical purposes.

Also, it's difficult to prove that something has a "value" without any prior sales history.
If Picasso made memes, we might say that they'd have some value even if they were never sold in the marketplace.
But, most people haven't made such a name for themselves.

This isn't law, but when something becomes a "meme" or even a popular "image macro" it's probably too late to protect it and monetize it.
The more places that it appears uncontrolled in the wild, the less that it's worth.

But, people send scores of letters asking for money every day.  Some people actually pay, but many don't.

S.G.

[Moe Hacken]

Those are very good points, S.G.

I don't see how the picture of the cat wearing a suit has any value since people only use it to make fart jokes when it's free. It would be different if they had to pay to use it and did not. I don't think anyone would bother if they had to pay even 99 cents. You can get a really cool app for that much these days.

However, as you mention, people can TRY and pull one of these copyright troll letters anyway to see if they can scare the funds out of someone's bank account by using a threatening letter and literally banking on the recipient's ignorance.

The "moment of creation" copyright is a principle thing, and would not be very valuable to a troll. Hence the race to do weird bulk registrations by "artists" like Carner and Tylor, which is fortunately being deprecated due to the fine work of sensible lawyers like Oscar. If the whole idea is to help people determine that a work is copyrighted in order to protect the copyright holder, a bulk registration is perfectly useless and unfair to those who are legitimately attempting to determine a work's copyright status.

Let's not forget that the ELI forum has educated this community about this issue to a degree that is light years beyond the average person, who usually believes all kinds of myths about how copyright law works. Those people are the victims of choice of the copyright troll. It's a perfectly Darwinian choice to go after the weak individuals when the strong are not around to protect them.

That's where ELI comes in. We're the strong because we've strengthened each other with knowledge and wisdom (and fart jokes too, I must admit) and we're doing our best to educate people and help them grow a spine and stand up to these trolls who are cowardly and run back to their hole as soon as they get a whiff of the butthurt ELI's going to slap on them.

I hope young Evan is paying heed. His young career is at stake here if he ends up getting a global reputation as a troll for his short-sighted attempt to score $15,000 for a lousy amateur shot of a property. Check the Google results for his name: The ELI content is creeping up on the results. These days, all prospective clients will look him up before considering hiring him.

Evan, if you are reading this, think about it, son. It's not worth it to shoot your career down the tubes for a mere $15,000. That's not even enough for a nice car.

[MrNiceGuy]

To those of you who posted useful information - a big thanks.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

To those of you who posted useful information - a big thanks.

Your certainly welcome, my pleasure!