Facebook Fined 100,000 Euros In German Intellectual Property Dispute (thestack.com) 23
An anonymous reader writes: A regional court in Berlin found that Facebook had not changed their terms and conditions statement to adequately address intellectual property concerns. The court fined Facebook 100,000 euros ($109,000) today, just one week after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's visit to Berlin, where he was awarded the first ever Axel Springer Award for entrepreneurship and innovation. Four years ago, in response to a complaint filed by the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV), a German court found that Facebook's terms and conditions did not address the circumstances in which users intellectual property could be used by Facebook or even licensed to third parties. The regional court in Berlin ruled today that while Facebook did change the wording of the statement on intellectual property in their terms and conditions, the message remained the same.
Sounds cheap (Score:3)
Defiantly not punitive, leaning toward apologetic.
Re:Sounds cheap (Score:5, Interesting)
Defiantly not punitive, leaning toward apologetic.
Punitative damages is an American concept. In the rest of the world you either pay damages or a (usually fixed) fine. This was appently a fine. There is scaling of some fines for large companies, but it is still mostly exceptions, which makes even big fines almost laughably small to most companies.
Re: (Score:2)
Here let me fix that for you "Punitive damages or exemplary damages are damages intended to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. "Australia (tort cases only but do allow psychological harm as damages), England, Wales, New Zealand, United States, China (double losses) and Japan (note they replace punitive damages with a criminal charge so extra special punitive damages)". Just for fun there
Re: (Score:1)
Only 100000 EUR, that is a joke for facebook
The TOS do not comply with local regulations, and they have to be adjusted. The fine is not for "buying" an exempt to comply with regulations, but an incentive to do so now. With continued non-compliance, the fine is going to rise. Not quickly, but given enough time someone will go to jail. The only way to avoid this is to create TOS that comply with the regulations, or close down the business.
Re:stupid germans (Score:4, Funny)
Intellectual property is stupid, it's nonsense.
I own some intellectual property. It is 1.5 kg of gray matter.
Terms and conditions (Score:2)
There is a € symbol, y'know (Score:5, Informative)
The court fined Facebook 100,000 euros ($109,000) today
I know all these wacky symbols are anathema to Slashdot, but you don't even need Unicode to write €.
(assuming it works beyond Preview)
Re: (Score:2)
can't see that on my (possibly racist) UK keyboard.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
ooh, bazinga! :)
(addendum: Oh, it's ALT+0128...)
Re: (Score:2)
Or Right Alt+4 on UK keyboards less than decades old.
Re: (Score:2)
can't see that on my (possibly racist) UKIP keyboard.
FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
I find the 's' behind "EURO" and the capitalization more disturbing than the lack of the â (jest that was an EUR sign) ... after all it won't go through preview on my Mac, and Macs don't have alt-123 combinations to create _windows_ EUR characters or _windows_ Umlauts etc.
What's the point? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Sausages! (Score:1)