Technology Law – some recent decisions
August 5th, 2009 by GilesHere are some snippets from Tech Bytes, a newsletter from law firm Shadbolt LLP
The first reported case involving libel on Facebook was decided recently and damages were awarded to the claimant (although the defamatory statements had been taken off Facebook after 16 days). A false personal profile was anonymously created on Facebook for the claimant, as well as a group which was entitled ‘Has Matthew Firsht lied to you?’. The group made false and defamatory allegations concerning the ability of Mr Firsht and his company to pay their debts.
The court not only made orders that enabled the perpetrator to be identified, but awarded Mr Firsht £19000 damages plus costs against the defendant, Mr. Raphael, and the damages award included £2000 for breach of privacy.
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The EC’s Database Directive was tested in Germany recently: the Database Directive protects database owners by granting them the right to prevent the re-utilization and/or extraction of a substantial part of their database by others.
The European Court of Justice found in favour of Freiburg University in a case where, the University had posted a list of the 1100 most important poems in German literature between 1720 and 1900 on the internet. The list was used by a company to produce a CD Rom entitled “1000 poems everyone should have” which included 876 of the poems from University’s list. The court agreed there had been an infringement of the University’s database.
For more details and more cases go to Shadbolt’s website