How should you respond to a request to remove copyrighted materials from a Facebook page? If you create a Twitter handle at work, who owns that handle when you change jobs? Can you be sued for libel if your posts are defamatory? If you’ve ever asked yourself these kinds of questions, this pioneering legal handbook is for you. Despite the enormous growth in social media, scant legal advice is available to help the many people who are posting online. Easy-to-understand, comprehensive, and current, Legal Guide to Social Media provides the latest information on case law and statutes. It covers everything from privacy laws to copyright issues to how to respond to employers’ requests for your social media passwords. This plain English legal companion offers examples of and solutions to the kinds of situations you can expect to encounter when posting online content, whether for personal enjoyment or on behalf of an employer. You’ll learn how to avoid liability for defamation and third-party posts, the legalities of copying and linking to content, how to protect your own content, and much, much more. Whether you’re a marketer, entrepreneur, business owner, new media manager, or simply one of the millions of social media users in the United States, this must-have guide will help you to understand and mitigate the most common legal risks inherent in social media use.

Written by a veteran litigator and leading expert on law and social media, The Lawyers Guide to Social Networking provides a comprehensive look at how social media is affecting the legal system. This book examines the myriad ways in which information from sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter is being put to use in everything from criminal and family law matters to personal injury, employment, and commercial cases nationwide. The author illustrates how the pervasive social networking phenomenon is redefining traditional notions of jurisdiction, duty, service of process, and legal ethics while using actual trial and appellate level cases to analyze the discoverability and admissibility of social media evidence.

The plain-English business guide to avoiding social media legal risks and liabilities—for anyone using social media for business—written specifically for non-attorneys! You already know social media can help you find customers, strengthen relationships, and build your reputation, but if you are not careful, it also can expose your company to expensive legal issues and regulatory scrutiny. This insightful, first-of-its-kind book provides business professionals with strategies for navigating the unique legal risks arising from social, mobile, and online media. Distilling his knowledge into a 100% practical guide specifically for non-lawyers, author and seasoned business attorney, Robert McHale, steps out of the courtroom to review today’s U.S. laws related to social media and alert businesses to the common (and sometimes hidden) pitfalls to avoid. Best of all, McHale offers practical, actionable solutions, preventative measures, and valuable tips on shielding your business from social media legal exposures associated with employment screening, promotions, endorsements, user-generated content, trademarks, copyrights, privacy, security, defamation, and more... You’ll Learn How To • Craft legally compliant social media promotions, contests, sweepstakes, and advertising campaigns • Write effective social media policies and implement best practices for governance • Ensure the security of sensitive company and customer information • Properly monitor and regulate the way your employees use social media • Avoid high-profile social media mishaps that can instantly damage reputation, brand equity, and goodwill, and create massive potential liability • Avoid unintentional employment and labor law violations in the use of social media in pre-employment screening • Manage legal issues associated with game-based marketing, “virtual currencies,” and hyper-targeting • Manage the legal risks of user-generated content (UGC) • Protect your trademarks online, and overcome brandjacking and cybersquatting • Understand the e-discovery implications of social media in lawsuits

Social media enables instant access to individual self-expression and the sharing of information. Social media issues are boundless, permeating distinct legal disciplines. The law has struggled to adapt and for good reason: how does the law regulate this medium over the public/private law divide? This book engages with the legal implications of social media from public and private law perspectives and outlines how the law, in various legal sub-disciplines and with varying success, has endeavoured to adapt existing tools to social media.

Many lawyers view social media as a passing fad, but lawyers who dismiss social media do so at their peril. This cutting-edge guide shows lawyers how to use a practical, goal-centric approach to social media. By enabling lawyers to identify the social media platforms and tools that fit their practice, lawyers can implement them easily, efficiently, and ethically. Written by two lawyers, this book is designed with both the novice and advanced user in mind.

Social media has many advantages for professional communication – but it also carries considerable risks, including legal pitfalls. This book equips students and communication professionals with the knowledge and skills to help minimise the risks that can arise when they post or host on social media. It offers them strategies for taking advantage of the opportunities of social media while also navigating the ethical, legal, and organisational risks that can lead to audience outrage, brand damage, expensive litigation and communication crises. The book uses stakeholder theory and risk analysis tools to anticipate, identify, address and balance these opportunities and risks. It takes a global approach to risk and social media law, drawing on fascinating case studies from key international jurisdictions to explain and illustrate the basic principles. Whether you are a corporate communicator, social media manager, journalist, marketer, blogger or student you will find this book an essential addition to your professional library as the first reference point when social media and legal risks arise.