Chicago-based Annmarie Swatos is suing a former employer who she had an affair. The reason? Defamation. According to Swatos, Richard Gloor spread rumors about her being “post-partum and delusional” as well as “crazy”. Due to the rumors, numerous Facebook friends unfriended her and as a result of losing those friends Swatos believes she should be awarded $50,000 on the count of “tortuous interference with business relations”.
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The past week has been a tough one for Facebook. The site was rendered inaccessible for over 150,000 users for over a week (which has since been fixed), and now the company has been hit with its third lawsuit. One a positive note, the company still appears to be adding users at a rapid pace, which means that more users were added in the past week than users who were not able to access the site.
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ConnectU is a company that never ceases to haunt Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. According to an article published in The Recorder, the Winklevoss brothers (who founded ConnectU), were awared $65 million in their suit against Facebook. You may also remember that there was a follow-on suit as the brothers were provided with stock options based on Microsoft’s $15 billion valuation despite private Facebook stock trades that valued the company at around $4 billion.
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Spam definitely doesn’t pay in the long run. Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital learned that when Judge Jeremy Fogel awarded Facebook $873 million in damages for them sending “sleazy messages” to their users. According to Facebook, this is the “largest judgment in history for action brought under the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM)”. You can read more about the act here.

Unfortunately Facebook doesn’t expect that they will ever receive the $873 million awarded to them as spammers typically don’t pay and traditionally operate from abroad. I wrote about the Facebook suit back in August and it looks like the case has finally been closed. I’m guessing that the defendants never appeared in court as they most likely would have been arrested on arrival. A copy of the judgement has been embedded below.
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Leader Technologies, an Ohio-based “intellectual capital company”, has filed a lawsuit against Facebook. The company claims that Facebook has infringed on one of their patents which relates generally “to a method and system for the management and storage of electronic information.” Sounds like a fairly broad patent which the company simply uses to obtain recurring revenue from large digital companies.
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It looks like Facebook has entered a gray area when it comes to users’ personal videos. According to Techdirt Facebook is issuing DMCA takedown notices to users that have copyrighted music playing in the background of their videos. That Facebook has technology to automatically check for copyrighted material in videos is impressive in its own right but telling users that they can’t place music in their personal videos is ridiculous.

If a user makes a video public and begins actively promoting that video, they may end up crossing the line. There is definitely a line that ends up being crossed and something tells me that it may have to do with the number of users that have access to a given video. If these videos are private then the takedowns are absolutely absurd. It’s not like this automated filtering will prevent users from creating personal home videos.

Isn’t that what Facebook video is for … personal videos? I understand the concept of going to YouTube and posting a music video or a television show and that being illegal. If you were recording a Bar/Bat Mitzvah or any other party with music and wanted to keep and share the video for sentimental reasons, it would be insane to have someone come and tell you to take it down.

I would have to consult a lawyer at this point when it comes to the legality behind this but I could see this turning into a pretty serious debate. I’ll reach out to the digital media lawyers that I know to see what they have to say. What do you think about users receiving a DMCA notice? Is this crossing the line? Where is the line on this issue?

Update
One of the commenters has posted a copy of one of Facebook’s DMCA takedown notices. Here’s what it says:

Hello,

We have removed your video entitled “*******” uploaded at 11:37pm February 2nd, 2008. We did this because we learned that your video might include copyrighted material owned by a third party, such as a video clip or background audio.

If you are the copyright owner, or have permission from the rights holder to upload and distribute this material on Facebook, you may file a counter notice of alleged infringement by following the link below.

Please note that if you re-upload this video without filing a counter notice, or if you upload another video that infringes on the rights of a third party, our system will again remove the content. This could cause your access to the Facebook Video application to be disabled, or your Facebook account to be disabled.

To file a counter notice:
File a Counter Notification

For Facebook’s video removal policy:
View the Policy

The Facebook Team
copyright@facebook.com