Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with legalities

Tag THIS.

Sully — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:04:48 -0800

There's this grafitti tagger here in town who scrawls his name everywhere in big black magic marker. On the sides of mailboxes, on walls, on doors. Thing is, it's a nice design and he's got a catchy name. I was thinking the other day that if I started a clothing line, I would like to use his tag as my trademark logo. Chances are, he hasn't trademarked his tag. If I decided to trademark it myself, then deployed it as the name of my clothing line, as well as use his scrawl on the backs of the hoodies I sold - legally, would he have any recourse?

Legalities of Selling Legally Downloaded Music?

Effigy2000 — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:56:34 -0800

Assuming I am true and honest to my word and delete the music from my hard drive once I sell it, how can I legally make money selling old music that I have legally downloaded and no longer want? I have bought a lot of music from the iTunes Store over the years. My music tastes have changed a bit since the days that I first started downloading music from them and so now I'd like to get rid of some of the older songs and albums that I no longer want, preferably for cold hard cash if I could. But unlike an old unwanted CD, I can't just go and sell it down at the local music shop. Is it OK to do this on eBay? If not, and assuming I am true and honest to my word and delete the music from my hard drive once I've actually sold it, how can I legally make money selling old music that I have legally downloaded and no longer want?

Is it really illegal for a company to act ethically?

divabat — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:20:30 -0800

"[Companies] have a legal responsibility to make their shareholders lots of money, which means they *MUST* rip you off for as much as they can get away with." Really? I've heard that sentiment many times (the above is a direct quotation) and it doesn't make sense to me. According to Carrotmob, "It's illegal for a corporation to behave in a socially responsible way -- unless that socially responsible behavior happens to be identical to the behavior that maximizes profit."

Proponents of the above argue that if a company shows "record profits", that's a sign that they've been ripping off customers. According to them, companies only think about their shareholders and the Board, and therefore must make as much money as possible regardless of ethics.

Is this true? Is it really illegal for companies to act ethically unless it makes money?

To me, it seems that if the above sentiments were true, social enterprises would not be able to exist. Also, it would make Corporate Social Responsibility illegal.

When shares are bought in a company, they are traded away very quickly, and aren't share prices usually determined in large part by the public perception of the company? Surely shareholders and Boards would notice if the customers are being ripped off or if the companies are acting unethically, and respond negatively to unethical corporate behaviour?

It seems to me that these notions come from the idea that "for-profit" = "evil bad conglomerate", but I can't seem to find any actual legal or economic basis for saying that companies must be unethical to profit.

Is there actually any basis to those points? Is it really illegal for a company to act ethically?

PayPal me my taxes.

Orkboi — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 13:14:14 -0800

I am running a free Web-based service for friends and acquaintances. Lately, the volume on this service has been growing greatly. The next step is to move the service to a professional host. I am thinking of putting a paypal donation button on the site to help pay for it. Are there any legal or tax issues I need to worry about? Do I need a business license? What if I want to start selling Cafe Press items or running Google ads? I am located in the USA.

Copyright vs. Satire. Tell me about the extent of fair use.

BrodieShadeTree — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 11:38:51 -0800

Copyright vs. Satire: How far can one extend the 'fair use' or satire legalities when it comes to using similar imagery in advertisement? (more inside) Essentially, I came up with a funny commercial idea for my business, where I would like to mimick/satirise the iPod commercials. (Bright backgrounds, silhouetted characters) My products, which are in NO WAY similar to iPod or techno oriented in any way, would be featured similarly in a humourous way.The comercials would be local market only,with a smallish viewership. So my question is this. Can I use that imagery in a similar but unrelated way without placing myself in legal harms way.