Industries Liability Blog

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.