MetaTalk

Hi folks -- here's a thread to talk about constructive next steps after this thread from two weeks ago. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Oct 18, 2023 - 122 comments

Thanks for your patience as I have worked through talking with lawyers who talk with their experts. This is a substantive update with some news and some questions for the community. The short form is: everyone on the team of people I spoke with agrees that MeFi could potentially be a non-profit organization (with the ultimate determination being made by the IRS). Now we need to decide how to move forward and make MeFi into a community-run organization. I'll give some backstory and a "where we are with this" situation inside. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Oct 3, 2023 - 181 comments

Following up on some concerns raised in MetaTalk threads from a few weeks ago about the role of the Steering Committee and having volunteers working for a for-profit company. This is not the outcome we were hoping for, but it's the one we got. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Mar 29, 2023 - 89 comments

My abstract for an article about AskMe has been accepted at a conference! [more inside]
posted by orrnyereg on Aug 3, 2016 - 29 comments

Mathowie has a Medium post detailing ongoing legal demands by Sundance Vacations to delete a 2010 Ask Metafilter thread about their business, and later demanding personal information about users in that thread. Short version: Sundance, or somebody claiming to be from Sundance, may have doctored an unrelated court order to aim it at Metafilter. The story has been picked up at BoingBoing, Popehat (where Ken White has praise for how our fearless leader handled the situation) and presumably elsewhere as well.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish on Sep 3, 2014 - 238 comments

Jedicus and valkyryn pose with their metafilter project, The Law Of Superheroes (previously)
posted by The Whelk on Oct 13, 2012 - 40 comments

This post ought not to have been deleted. The reason given: "This post was deleted for the following reason: Seems like an interesting and pretty fucked-up case, but most of the links here seem like they're kind of filler material and if the meat of the post is essentially "read this legal PDF" it might need to be presented a lot more in those terms, or with some good long-form journalism or analysis. Otherwise we've just got folks arguing about rape charges yet again. -- cortex" [more inside]
posted by anigbrowl on May 24, 2012 - 203 comments

Can we have a banner on top of MeFi similar to this famous library signs by Jessamyn. In the wake of the Twitter subpoena situation which seems to involve the electronic records of one of our members; it seems like some kind of sign indicating that "no secret subpoenas have been received sign" might be reassuring. Though I'm not sure of the legality not being a lawyer, etc.
posted by humanfont on Jan 14, 2011 - 88 comments

Update on medical marijuana for autistic 9 year old with chronic abdominal pain. Existing (closed) thread from last fall. [more inside]
posted by toodleydoodley on Apr 19, 2010 - 19 comments

Please, for the love of all that is holy, can we please stop? [more inside]
posted by gjc on Jun 4, 2008 - 182 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by jewishbuddha on Dec 21, 2007 - 138 comments

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
posted by Kirth Gerson on Apr 26, 2007 - 43 comments

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?
posted by gummi on Mar 27, 2007 - 18 comments

Is this suitable for AskMe?
posted by fourcheesemac on Mar 16, 2007 - 355 comments

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."
posted by GrammarMoses on Dec 8, 2006 - 35 comments

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.
posted by incessant on Oct 20, 2006 - 185 comments

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?
posted by dminor on Sep 26, 2006 - 59 comments

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.
posted by ikkyu2 on Jul 5, 2006 - 63 comments

Get a legal blog.
posted by furtive on Feb 16, 2006 - 243 comments

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?
posted by justkevin on Dec 27, 2005 - 40 comments

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.
posted by MattD on Nov 25, 2005 - 11 comments

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.
posted by footnote on Aug 15, 2005 - 18 comments

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?
posted by ikkyu2 on Jul 15, 2005 - 52 comments

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.
posted by Plutor on Apr 1, 2005 - 28 comments

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.
posted by Smart Dalek on Nov 23, 2004 - 35 comments

Should Ask MetaFilter be used to help someone find software that is not suppose to be distributed?
posted by terrapin on Nov 3, 2004 - 12 comments

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.
posted by PrinceValium on Mar 1, 2004 - 52 comments

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?
posted by wendell on Sep 11, 2003 - 14 comments

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.
posted by jonson on Dec 6, 2002 - 42 comments

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?
posted by popvulture on May 29, 2002 - 46 comments

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?
posted by rebeccablood on Mar 17, 2002 - 22 comments