In recent years, social media influencers have transformed the way brands engage with consumers. Influencers carry significant power in shaping trends, opinions and purchasing decisions of consumers. However, this newfound influence has also brought about a set of legal responsibilities that brands engaging influencers must understand and navigate.
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In an era where artificial intelligence continues to redefine the boundaries of creativity, recent developments in the music industry have brought copyright law into uncharted waters. With AI now capable of generating songs in the style of iconic musicians like John Lennon and Kurt Cobain, questions of copyright authorship and ownership are creating some big soundwaves.
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In the vast expanse of the internet, domain names are like digital storefronts, essential for businesses and individuals to stake their claim online. However, amidst the plethora of legitimate domain registrations, a darker practice known as cybersquatting lurks. This phenomenon occurs when individuals register domain names in bad faith, aiming to profit from the reputation of established trade marks or businesses.
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IP Australia is replacing the current Trade Marks Goods and Services list (aka the picklist) with the Madrid Goods and Services (Madrid List) list in March 2024. This change will bring Australian trade mark classification standards in line with international best practice; make global trade mark protection easier for Australians doing business overseas.
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The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) recently decided that simple emojis cannot be trademarked under European law. Here’s what happened: Background emoji In December 2021 a German company Käselow, sought to have a commonly used emoji registered as their trademark. The mark in question was an image of a hand sign commonly understood to mean ‘ILY’ or ‘I Love…
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Australia currently provides protections, via the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Cth) (ASIC Act), against unfair contract terms (Unfair Contract Terms Regime). The Unfair Contract Terms Regime applies to consumer contracts and small business contracts that are considered standard form contracts.
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The metaverse is an interactive digital environment encompassing all virtual worlds, augmented reality and the internet. A space where users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users in real time. In simple terms, a 3D version of the internet. 1. Facebook’s nod to the metaverse Following Facebook’s rebranding to Meta, privacy concerns have been raised given Facebook’s history…
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Key takeaways Recent developments of ChatGPT has triggered debate surrounding the legalities of its content. ChatGPT threatens authors and artists whose work may be used in ChatGPT content without their permission. ChatGPT also raises copyright issues for those who use ChatGPT to create content, as without a human author, it can be difficult to claim copyright infringement. ChatGPT is an…
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Each year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announces its Compliance and Enforcement Priorities. In 2022-23, one of its priorities was to identify deceptive marketing practices across the digital economy. On 27 January 2023, the ACCC announced that it will be starting a sweep to identify misleading testimonials and endorsements by social media influencers. This comes as members of…
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We’ve all heard about it – personal information being leaked into the public domain or perhaps sold to third parties without knowledge or consent. Whilst these occurrences can be catastrophic, we seem to have developed a ‘breach fatigue’ or desensitization as data breaches become more of ‘the norm’. Protecting your personal information is not as simple as having a 12-character…
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