Family Sues Phone Company Over Ad

DALLAS (AP) — A Dallas family has sued Australia's Virgin Mobile phone company, claiming it caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and Web site advertisements without consent.

The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr, Yahoo Inc.'s popular photo-sharing Web site, and failed to credit by name the photographer who took the photo.

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The picture of 16-year-old Chang flashing a peace sign was taken at an April church car wash by Alison's youth counselor, who posted it that day on his Flickr page, according to Alison's brother, Damon. In the ad, Virgin Mobile printed one of its campaign slogans, "Dump your pen friend," over Alison's picture.

The ad also says "Free text virgin to virgin" at the bottom.

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People who post photos on Flickr are asked how they want to license their attribution. The person who posted the photo of Chang chose a sharing license from Creative Commons that allows others to reuse work such as photos without violating copyright laws, if they credit the photographer and say where the photo was taken.

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Poking fun at Paris leads to a lawsuit for Hallmark

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — "That's hot." A lawsuit says that's Paris Hilton's remark.

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Hallmark Cards says it was just dishing up satire with a greeting card spoofing "Paris' First Day as a Waitress." There's a photo of Hilton's face superimposed on a cartoon waitress telling her customer, "Don't touch that, it's hot." The customer asks, "What's hot?" and the waitress says, "That's hot."

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Legally, the question isn't "What's hot?" but who owns the rights to "That's hot." A lawsuit against Hallmark, filed last week by the heiress, notes that the federal patent office in February issued to her a registered trademark on the term "That's hot" for its use in apparel.

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UC Berkeley, Stanford crack down on illegal downloading

College students beware: Universities are ratcheting up punishments for illegally downloading music and video from your dorm rooms this school year in an effort to tamp down the popular pastime.

Stanford University and UC Berkeley are among schools that have added teeth to their policies to make students think twice about violating copyright laws. The hope, in part, is to keep students from being sued by Hollywood studios, which consider online piracy a threat to their business and are sparing little expense to track down people who illicitly share songs, television shows and films.

The penalties are an acknowledgment by the schools that they have been largely ineffective at keeping students from online file-sharing services like Limewire, Ares and Gnutella, where music by top artists can be swapped for free.

Stanford started a program on Saturday that financially hits students who go astray. If students fail to remove illegal digital downloads from their computers within 48 hours of being asked to do so, the university will sever their campus Internet connections, and they will have to pay $100 to get them restored.

A second offense will require a $500 reconnection fee. A third infraction will cost students $1,000.

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Google To Pay Nothing in Keyword 'Sucker's Bet'

Google will not pay American Blind & Wallpaper Factory any fee after settling a suit over its Adwords trademark policy.

As long as Google does not change its trademark policy, American Blind & Wallpaper Factory will drop its suit, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by internetnews.com.

"We are very pleased with this outcome and to note that Google has not paid and will not be paying any settlement fee, our trademark policies remain unchanged, and we've made no special exceptions for American Blind," Google managing counsel Michael Kwun told internetnews.com.

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Eric Goldman, director of Santa Clara University School of Law's High Tech Law Institute, thinks the now-former plaintiff fell for a "sucker bet" when it decided to sue over the fact that search queries on some of its trademarked terms returned searches from competitors and others.

"I think American Blinds' complete capitulation is the latest reminder to plaintiffs that it's often irrational to bring lawsuits over keywords," Goldman wrote on his Technology & Marketing Law blog.

"This case reiterates that keyword-related lawsuits can be a sucker's bet," Goldman wrote.

If that's true, the latest "sucker" to test the legality of Google AdWords's trademark policy might be American Airlines, which wants Google to stop selling keyword-based sponsored search results tied to any of its trademarks and is seeking punitive damages over the alleged infringement.

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Before Models Can Turn Around, Knockoffs Fly

“If I see something on Style.com, all I have to do is e-mail the picture to my factory and say, ‘I want something similar, or a silhouette made just like this,’ ” Ms. Anand said. The factory, in Jaipur, India, can deliver stores a knockoff months before the designer version.

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Ms. Anand’s company, Simonia Fashions, is one of hundreds that make less expensive clothes inspired by other designers’ runway looks, for trendy stores like Forever 21 and retail behemoths like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.

A debate is raging in the American fashion industry over such designs. Copying, which has always existed in fashion, has become so pervasive in the Internet era it is now the No. 1 priority of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which is lobbying Congress to extend copyright protection to clothing. Nine senators introduced a bill last month to support the designers. An expert working with the designers’ trade group estimates that knockoffs represent a minimum of 5 percent of the $181 billion American apparel market.

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