Feedback: who is liable for user generated restaurant reviews?

Posted by Nicholas Stewart and Veronica Scott

The service was lax, the lamb was undercooked, you feel you didn't receive value for your meal and leave the restaurant reeling after the maitre d' smiles at you and says, 'Please come again soon!'. You rush home, turn on the laptop and log onto deliciousfeedfback.net (Delicious*) to tell the world what you think of Barney's Newtown (Barney's*). And boy do you sock it to them:

The staff are lazy! The lamb was raw and the restaurant looks like a brothel! 0/10

Barney's might give a second thought to suing a customer, but let's imagine it really wants to. You've got no money, so that leaves the cashed-up Delicious for Barney's to go after. The question comes to mind: is Delicious publishing defamatory material?

UK: customers of online media monitoring services require a licence from news publishers to avoid infringing copyright

Posted by Siobhan Doherty

On 27 July 2011, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales confirmed that customers of Meltwater, an online media monitoring organisation (MMO), require the consent of the online news publishers in order to avoid infringing copyright in the news content.

This case has implications for both providers and users of media monitoring services in the UK.

Technology licensing – 5 tips for avoiding ‘oh dear’ moments

Posted by Julia Murray

Image by Alex Proimos

There’s no secret formula for negotiating successful technology licence agreements. But it’s not always the ‘big ticket’ items – such as liability caps and termination rights – that cause licence agreements to come unstuck. As the following five pointers demonstrate, the old adage about preparation still holds true.