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ecommerce

Brands / Counterfeiting / Legal Contracts

From A to P: Amazon’s Third-Party Problem

October 23, 2019

With Christmas ‘only’ two months away, many of us will soon be turning to Amazon for our holiday shopping. But recently, the company has received heavy criticism regarding counterfeited items and expired food sold by third-party vendors. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal Tech Live Conference this week, one of the company’s top managers explained the company is prepared to spend billions to combat the problem. Some of us (myself included!) will remember that Amazon began as an online bookseller 25 years ago in Seattle, Washington at the height of the dot.com boom. Two years later, America’s largest bookseller Barnes &…

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Copyright / Uncategorized

No more Safe Harbours for EU-ser Uploaded Content?

April 16, 2018

The European Union is considering a sweeping new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, currently in draft stages. Industry groups are keen to ensure their opinions are taken into consideration, especially in instances where consumers share content which belongs to artists, authors, record labels, and television channels. Digital platforms and internet service providers which host User Uploaded Content (UUC) argue that they are not responsible for any copyright infringing material uploaded by their users. However, trade bodies representing various industries believe the incoming Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive doesn’t go far enough to reform this safe harbour…

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Facebook comments as “reviews”

October 17, 2017

Reviews are powerful marketing tools. From making dinner reservations to buying a new pair of shoes, I very rarely part with my hard-earned cash before checking out the ratings and comments online. I also follow quite a few restaurants, designers, photographers, and fitness bloggers on Facebook, and often see people leave reviews there, too. But what can a business actually do with those comments? And if you leave a review on a company’s Facebook page, what are your rights over what you’ve written?

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Online Intermediary Liability in EU Copyright Enforcement (2013)

August 30, 2016

For my final essay on the GDL (the law conversion course here in England), I chose to write on intellectual property law. I argued that legal uncertainty and lack of proper enforcement strategies results in fragmentation across the Member States. I earned a Distinction (75% UK) on the paper. This essay (18 pages, double spaced) includes a brief synopsis of intellectual property right basics, followed by a justification of the European Union’s competency to legislate in this area. The third section contextualises the problem of copyright infringement on the internet, with a specific focus on online intermediary liability.

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MP3s crossing a Europe without borders

October 9, 2015

When I was in Germany several years ago, I attempted to play a music video on YouTube that I had first seen in the United Kingdom. It was blocked on copyright grounds. I wondered, if the European Union guarantees the free movement of goods and services between Member States (which the UK and Germany both are), how could Germany block access to music I could freely access back home in London? This question inspired my Masters Thesis, which explored European copyright law in the context of digital music services. I even got to interview the head of licencing at Spotify…

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