Wires Crossed #66 – 13th January
Man Sued For Followers
This lawsuit made us have a “what the hell?” moment until we realised it was in the US, in which case this is of no surprise at all. Writer Noah Kravitz is being sued by his former employer, Phonedog, after he kept his Twitter nic @Phonedog_Noah account and his 17,000+ followers. Seems Kravitz and his former boss had an agreement that he keep tweeting from the account, which he did for a while then stopped because he was not getting compensated. What was interesting is that Phonedog sued him and said they wanted $2.50 per month per follower for eight months. That came out at a staggering $340,000. From this end the suit sounds frivolous and the only winners will be lawyers, but how the company came to that amount is anybody’s guess. Why not one cent per follower, or $1,000 per follower? And we’re not even going to get into the argument of whose followers they really are – Kravitz’s or the company’s?
To Sue Or Not To Sue
Once again we are in the land of litigation – the US, but this one made us laugh. Sony is allegedly being sued by a Californian man over its no-sue rule in its new terms and conditions of its PlayStation Network. As mentioned in a recent Wires Crossed, Xbox has done something similar, so it should come as no surprise that Sony would like to do the same – especially after the hacking scandal last year that left many PlayStation Network users worried about their user names and passwords being stolen. We are no legal eagles at Wires Crossed, but we’re betting – in Australia at least – that there must be some sort of customer rights’ issue that has been trodden on.
Jobs Doll Leads To Legal Action
Yet more litigation in the CE sector. We think this goes under “haven’t you guys got anything better to do”. Apple is set to sue a Chinese manufacturer who is making a doll of the company’s late founder Steve Jobs. Apple isn’t exactly known for being recalcitrant when it comes to legal action, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise they are suing the company. However, Chinese laws are complicated to say the least, especially when it comes to copyright, and the Chinese have never been known to eagerly enforce such laws anyway. To which we say to Apple, Good luck!
Getting A Divorce? Blame Facebook
Facebook has a lot to answer for when it comes to divorce if a new survey is to be believed. UK website divorce-online.co.uk, which is a do-it-yourself divorce URL (true story!) asked 5000 people who had used the site why they were getting divorced. Almost a third said Facebook – more specifically how their spouse behaved towards the opposite sex – was the reason. Other reasons included friends snitching on their spouses behaviour online (are they really friends?), and couples who have split up – but yet to divorce – and sent over the edge by nasty comments being made about them on the social networking site. What happened to the good old days of shouting matches that the neighbours could here?
Brought to you by CyberShack.com.au
