Throughout the world there are a variety of media agencies
that help different brands through digital marketing, advertisements, events,
and other media outlets. Because technology is continuously changing everyday
there has been numerous media agencies affected by a variety of liabilities.
Three of the most popular liabilities that have affected media agencies include
cyber liability, false misrepresentation, and right of publicity. The first
liability that will be discussed is called cyber liability. According to the IRMI website, cyber liability is caused when a
business has a data breach which more than likely will cause the business to
lose private information regarding the business and/or clients. An example of
cyber liability includes a prominent case in which nineteen former Facebook
users accused Facebook, Inc. of releasing their private information online.
According to the website Find Law, Facebook created an online program that
targeted Facebook users web activity from different websites and in turn posted
their web activities to their personal Facebook page. This quickly became a
problem because Facebook did not receive proper consent from the Facebook users
to broadcast their personal web activity on their social media page. Through
negotiation and mediation the defendant, Facebook, Inc., agreed to pay nine and
half million dollars to the plaintiffs only if they agreed to release all of
their claims against Facebook, Inc. In this particular situation Facebook, Inc.
should have sent an electronically written consent form to their users in
order to keep them from being sued from their online users.
The second liability that a media agency may face is
representing a client whose does not have any trademark rights regarding the
company’s name and/or logo. According to
the website Find Law, AOL Advertising, Inc. filed a law suit
and injunction against the company,Advertise.com, because the defendant was
infringing on the trademark rights of the plaintiff. AOL Advertising, Inc.
claimed that Advertising.com was using the same type of textual image and
design as AOL Advertising, Inc. According to the United States Patent and
Trademark Office, AOL owns the trademark rights to “ADVERTISE.COM” and they
also own the design rights of the title. The district court ruled in favor of
AOL Advertising, Inc. and urged the defendant to stop using the trade name or
any type of design that would be closely related to AOL’s title name. Because
AOL own the name and design of the word “ADVERTISING.COM” than they should have
won the case because ultimately the defendant would have been infringing on
their rights. The defendant should have researched the title of their company
carefully before deciding to use that particular title for their company’s
brand name.
The third liability that a media agency may face is the
right of publicity. If a media agency decides to use a well-known person to
endorse their company it is highly important the media agency sends a consent
letter to that well-known person asking them for permission to use their name
and/or image. An example of this type of case would be the Lindsey Lohan
v. Game Theft Auto V case. According to the Hollywood Examiner, Lindsay Lohan is suing Game
Theft Auto V because they allegedly used her image in one of their videos games
without her consent. Lindsay Lohan explained that the character that is
displayed in the game shares similar features, clothing, and accessories that
have been worn by the celebrity in recent years. Though this is still an
ongoing case there has been many other similar cases where businesses have use
celebrities as a way to gain notoriety for their brand. Many businesses have to
very careful of how they use someone’s image and they need to make sure that
they have some type of written consent form from the well-known establish
person. This preparation will prevent lawsuits and chaos for the business and
the celebrity.
In conclusion, in order to avoid all of these liabilities it
is important for a media agency to research every type of information about
their company in order to make sure that they are not infringing on any one
else’s rights. It is important that the media agency possesses trademark rights
and it is highly important that they make sure that they have some type of
written consent document whenever they are using a third party to help endorse
the business and/or product.