MetaTalk posts tagged with legal

I am a commenter, but not your commenter

gjc — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:19:31 -0800

Please, for the love of all that is holy, can we please stop? With this crap: "I am not a doctor or dentist, not your doctor or dentist, and you are not my patient. This is not medical advice, it is only to be use for education purposes." Why do people do it? Is it a joke that I'm not getting? It's the internet! Of course you're not my lawyer! Can we have a truce? Can we assume that it's stated and obvious that nobody is nobody else's professional and quit wasting electrons?

IAALBIANYL

jewishbuddha — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:15:32 -0800

This article gives some insight into the issues surrounging giving legal advice on internet forums, which we occasionally deal with on AskMe: The Dangers of Virtual Cocktail Parties. It's not best-of-the-web, so it didn't merit a MeFi post, but we discuss some of these topics in MeTa now and again, so I thought it might be of interest. Every so often someone asks "Why does everyone bother with the 'I am not a lawyer' drivel?" And many AskMe questions now end with an eye-rolling "Yeah, yeah, I know you're not my frickin lawyer, but..." The disclaimers aren't meant to be condescending. Not everyone is as savvy as you, and a little "IANAL" or "IANYL" goes a long way towards avoiding the unlicensed practice of law or the creation of unintended attorney-client relationships.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

fandango_matt — Fri, 25 May 2007 13:09:45 -0800

"I believe in the overthrow of the government, should the situation warrant." posted by valentinepig at 11:16 AM Please don't use MetaFilter to break the law.

No Fark for you!

Kirth Gerson — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:54:51 -0800

We may not have Fark to kick around anymore:

Text comments, AudioEdit submissions, and Photoshopped images posted on Fark by registered users may not be reposted or broadcast without the express written permission or license from Fark.com, and must attribute Fark.com as the source.

via

Can I Legally Post This To MeFi Music?

gummi — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:20:00 -0800

Sometime in the early nineties a now long lost friend of mine recorded a cd. I can't seem to locate him and it's been quite a few years since we last talked. I found a copy of his cd and want to post a few of his songs to MeFi Music. (I love the cheesy pop-techno sound of a few of these tunes and the memories they bring back.) I "played" on stage with him (keyboard flourishes...very minimal playing on my part) and spent many hours in the studio with him on more than one occasion during the recording of said cd. Given that information, would posting the songs be an OK thing to do? Are there legal issues?

Are you kidding?

fourcheesemac — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 09:09:40 -0800

Is this suitable for AskMe?

The law for my enemies

GrammarMoses — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 13:51:21 -0800

The latest installment in the saga of our Borat correspondent:

"One of the plaintiffs was forced to resign from his prominent position at the University of South Carolina chapter of Chi Psi. Along with barring the DVD release, the plaintiffs were seeking unspecified monetary damages."

Murderous Confession

incessant — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 23:45:13 -0800

Well, askme got served with a doozy tonight and I think it's safe to say it didn't go well. It's not just the completely awful legal advice being dispensed, or the attempt to frame this question as a solely moral one that disturbed me, but the seeming justification of murder (and referencing religion to reason away that murder) that made me shudder.

What is Metafilter's stance on handing over information to the authorities?

dminor — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 01:31:53 -0800

matt, jessamyn -
as far as i can tell this is nontrivial.
what is your stance on handing over information to the authorities? at&t, google, other, or something entirely different?

Illegal Advice on AskMe

ikkyu2 — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 09:20:26 -0800

Seems to me that this question on AskMe is asking for advice on how to break the law, specifically how to break immigration law restricting the scope of the poster's employment. In order to get around the immigration laws, the income couldn't be reported to IRS, so he's asking how to break tax laws too.

I don't really care, but it seems to me that if "How can I break this law," violates the askme guidelines, then this post needs to be yanked.

I hate legal posts/I love legal posts

furtive — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 10:52:07 -0800

Get a legal blog.

Notification of need to cooperate with LEO?

justkevin — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 06:48:13 -0800

I've noticed that many AskMe threads (like this one) dealing with potential crimes and/or civil suits could be subpoened as evidence if the right person connected the dots. Should there be a notice on the anonymous question page that Metafilter may be compelled by law to release the IP address of anonymous posters?

Legal AskMe

MattD — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 07:09:10 -0800

Some of the responses in this AskMeFi thread were dangerously wrong. I understand that AskMeFi is all fun and games, but when a poster asks a legal question and then says that he has no intention of consulting a lawyer, we're walking on dangerous ground in terms of the quality of the answers.

Not sure that there's any easy solution, but it's something worth thinking about.

I am not a lawyer but here is my advice....

footnote — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 19:46:24 -0800

This thread has me wondering: when does discussing the law on a forum like AskMe cross over to giving legal advice? Obviously, any lawyer's first answer is going to be "talk to a lawyer." But then what? (A very similar professional ethics problem for doctors has been discussed here before.) My legal ethics class was fantastic, but we talked more about Enron than the internet.

Where should I, a physician, draw the line at commenting on health-related posts in AskMe?

ikkyu2 — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 20:29:50 -0800

Where should I, a physician, draw the line at commenting on health-related posts in AskMe?

I enjoy thinking about folks' medical puzzles and often learn something in the process of trying to solve them. However, I'm a neurologist, so most of what I comment on is well outside my scope of practice. I've tried to make it clear in my user info that I'm not commenting in my professional capacity as a medical advisor, but instead as "just another Metafilter user." But if you scroll down to roofus' thought-provoking post a few days ago, you can read about a number of harmful things that we docs could inadvertently be causing, including but not limited to the inflammation of hypochondria, acute bad-adviceFilter, and sudden dismemberment or death.

What do folks think? Should I just can it before I get sued?

Are these appropriate?

b1tr0t — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:58:04 -0800

First a bomb guide, now a request for a meth how-to. While these are both interesting posts, they do not seem appropriate for metafilter. Am I crazy?

Is this ethical and/or legal?

Plutor — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 04:57:46 -0800

I have prepared an FPP about an organization that was recently the subject of a couple Internet memes (and Metafilter threads) that is now being sued by a major international corporation as a result of one of their pranks. Their web site is vague and asks people not to post rumors, but they sent out a number of details to their mailing list, including ways to support them. Would it be unethical for me to post this semi-private information to Metafilter? Could I get them in more trouble with this lawsuit? Half of me feels that Mefites might be willing to contribute to the cause, but the other half wants to be extremely careful.

Grey areas in AskMe

Smart Dalek — Tue, 23 Nov 2004 16:57:40 -0800

The AskMe thread on faking one's death seems to skirt the same grey area as several of the deleted warez-related inquiries. Not to be a prude, of course -it's ust that curiousity like this could be bad for our ponies.

AskMe Legality Guideline

terrapin — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 09:40:24 -0800

Should Ask MetaFilter be used to help someone find software that is not suppose to be distributed?

Policy against legal, medical, and tax advice?

PrinceValium — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 08:34:15 -0800

Requests for very specific legal, medical, and tax advice make me nervous. There should be some policy against these, or at least a very bold warning strongly discouraging and expressly disclaiming liability against responses in these threads.

Are there any "lyrics sites" that aren't a pop-up nightmare?

wendell — Thu, 11 Sep 2003 22:51:33 -0800

User Cyrano just seconded my recent contention that it seems every "lyrics site" is a pop-up nightmare that would shame most pr0n sites (not that I'd know...). Are there any "lyrics sites" that aren't? Come to think of it (really stupid question follows), are "lyrics sites" even half-way legal, or do they just exist because ASCAP and BMI are not as evil as the RIAA?

Linking to Copyrighted Material

jonson — Fri, 06 Dec 2002 12:58:30 -0800

Isn't this link to copyrighted material illegal? Or at the very least, unethical? Not trying to stir up controversey over the whole "file sharing" debate, just don't want MetaFilter sued for distribution of material that's both copyrighted & commercially available.

How do I deal with a cease and desist letter to my blog?

popvulture — Wed, 29 May 2002 02:00:15 -0800

After 5 years online publishing hundreds of pages of content, my personal site poprocks.com has received a cease and desist letter from Barcelona candy company Zeta Espacial. I write about pop culture, and I am identified with the domain, personally and professionally. I have never tried to sell the domain to anyone, nor have I ever had its value appraised. Do I have any hope?

Legal action ahoy!

rebeccablood — Sun, 17 Mar 2002 22:57:38 -0800

here's an interesting dilemma. the hate site referenced in this thread is being threatened with legal action from a company named the vanguard group.

how do we feel about this?