{"id":3572,"date":"2015-09-15T11:56:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T15:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=3572"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:53:35","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:53:35","slug":"ashley-madison-cheatingwith-copyright-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/ashley-madison-cheatingwith-copyright-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashley Madison Cheating\u2026with Copyright Law?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ashley Madison probably isn\u2019t everyone\u2019s favorite woman, but the website has been in the news recently. Hackers exposed the list and identifying information of users of the website\u2014a website designed in part to help individuals find people for extramarital relations. In addition to the countless controversies over who used the site, including those who are suing the company<\/a>, there is an interesting legal tactic being taken by the website. Ashley Madison is sending DMCA notices<\/a> to various websites trying to protect the information.
\nThe DMCA<\/a>, or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, was a piece of legislation created in 1998 that, among other things, helps shield websites from potentially infringing content that users post on the website. It was originally designed to help movie and music producers from having their copyright material uploaded online. It is the reason YouTube is so quick to remove potentially infringing content. If someone is subject to a DMCA takedown, then they can file a response. The website has 10 to 14 business days to put the material back online. If that happens, the person alleging copyright infringement can file a lawsuit. Sometimes the DMCA can be far from perfect<\/a> though.
\nWhile this usually is used for music or video, it doesn\u2019t have to be. Copyright protects a wide range<\/a> of creative pieces from writing to art to photographs. An individual actually doesn\u2019t have to register his or her work to make it copyrighted\u2014copyright happens at the moment of creation. There is an advantage to registering a copyright; if someone is found to infringe it there can be an automatic statutory penalty of $150,000<\/a> per infraction. This is the reason we have all heard of bizarre stories of grandmothers<\/a> being penalized millions of dollars for something their grandchildren downloaded.
\nThe DMCA has been used very recently in a rather non-traditional manner. Following a massive celebrity nude picture leak caused by hackers last year, Jennifer Lawrence<\/a> (among other actors) sent DMCA notices to Google to remove two links her lawyer said hosting pictures that violated her copyright. Google removed<\/a> the links and tags to Jennifer Lawrence, though they did not have to, as the links in question apparently no longer contained the allegedly copyrighted material.<\/p>\n

Does this mean Ashley Madison should feel good about the debatably creative legal strategy that they are taking? That depends on whom you ask.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The attorney for Ashley Madison\u2019s parent company Avid Life Media says so<\/a>. He says the company is \u201cpleased\u201d because what was most important to the company was the confidentiality of the customers\u2019 information.
\nNot everyone sees it this way. Some think that Ashley Madison is actually abusing the powers<\/a> of the DMCA in order to protect something it shouldn\u2019t cover. In addition to saying the copyright law is being used wrongly, there is a good argument that using copyright law does nothing to actually prevent the hacking issues that underlie all of these cases. Some are even more critical<\/a> of Ashley Madison\u2019s tactics.
\nTime will tell who is right, but Ashley Madison might want to consider being careful with using the DMCA so broadly and quickly. One person who previously sent frequent DMCA notices actually was counter sued<\/a> by an individual who accused them of abusing its power.
\nFacing lawsuits from former website users and other companies? That sounds like an affair that even Ashley Madison might want to avoid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ashley Madison probably isn\u2019t everyone\u2019s favorite woman, but the website has been in the news recently. Hackers exposed the list and identifying information of users of the website\u2014a website designed in part to help individuals find people for extramarital relations. In addition to the countless controversies over who used the site, including those who are …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7317,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions\/7317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}