2018 has certainly refocused the public’s attention to social media regulations, and the role of privacy in the digital age. On July 5, 2018, the European Union Parliament rejected proposed revisions to the E.U.’s copyright law that would have radically changed how copyright will be enforced and controlled online. The proposed regulations focused on Articles … Continue reading E.U. Tackles Copyright Reform and Pauses—For Now
Research is one of the cornerstones of good public relations practice. It is enshrined in our PR education, and, as anyone who has read an undergraduate PR textbook knows, research is the first step in the PR campaign process known as RPIE. Currently research in public relations is being affected by the popular phenomenon of … Continue reading Big Data, Privacy, and the Law: How Legal Regulations May Affect PR Research
Download Infographic: Choosing the Right Name Names are important, especially for organizations. They are meant to distinguish one thing from another in the marketplace. However, names are more than just identifiers. They can evoke an organization’s culture and attitude, stir emotions, and, when chosen poorly, can cause an otherwise good product or organization to be … Continue reading Choosing the Right Name: How the U.S. Supreme Court Changed Trademark Law in 2017
Download Full Paper (PDF): FTC Regulation of Native Advertising: How New Federal Rules Impact PR Practice Download Infographic: Three Takeaways from Native Advertising Regulation This paper examines native advertising and the FTC regulations that affect its content. Specific attention is given to the FTC 2015 guidelines Native Advertising: A Guide for Business and their Enforcement … Continue reading FTC Regulation of Native Advertising: How New Federal Rules Impact PR Practice
This blog post features an IPR Signature Study. The white paper, “Protecting Online Image in a Digital Age: How Trademark Issues Affect PR Practice” was released in the Research Journal of IPR, Volume III, Issue I. The full paper is available here. “Image is everything” was the slogan of a 1990s TV commercial by Canon … Continue reading Protecting Online Image in a Digital Age: How Trademark and Parody Issues Affect PR Practice
Cayce Myers, Ph.D., J.D., LL.M., Legal Research Editor for Institute for Public Relations, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Virginia Tech | mcmyers@vt.edu Download Full Paper (PDF): Protecting Online Image in a Digital Age: How Trademark Issues Affect PR Practice Executive Summary Trademark law directly affects the level of control a public relations … Continue reading Protecting Online Image in a Digital Age: How Trademark Issues Affect PR Practice
The old adage that “perception is reality” is particularly true in online reputation management. Practitioners know that what’s said online, true or not, frequently influences the public’s perception of their client. Online image cultivation and maintenance has become part of almost all public relations practice, and practitioners continually strive to keep up with what people … Continue reading Suing for a Good Review: Using Twibel to Manage Online Image
What are the legal limits on raising capital for startups? Are there legal constraints on promotions for a startup? Can a for-profit organization raise money on the Internet from unsophisticated investors? These questions are important for practitioners to know given the changing nature of online capital campaigns. Public relations literature on fundraising has proliferated in … Continue reading Crowdfunding and Public Relations: How Federal Agencies Regulate Online Campaigns
As interest in international public relations increases, knowing the communication laws that affect other countries is all the more important. Nowhere is this more important than China. In April 2015 the Chinese government passed new communications laws that will go into effect in September 2015. These laws represent the latest Chinese effort to protect consumers … Continue reading China’s New Communication Laws: Three Things PR Practitioners Need to Know
This article is part of research presented at the 2015 International Public Relations Research Conference. For similar research visit IPR’s Law and Public Relations research section. Public relations practitioners have long known saying “I’m sorry” in a crisis causes negative collateral consequences. These consequences frequently are lawsuits that use organizational statements of apology, empathy, sympathy, and remorse … Continue reading Knowing When It’s Legally Safe to Say “I’m Sorry”: The Legal Effects of Mortification Strategy
Since the Internet’s creation, one universal truth is that “whatever is put online stays online forever.” In May of 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union turned that adage on its head when it ruled that search engines must remove specific material from websites when formally requested by individual users. In short, that … Continue reading The “Right to Be Forgotten” in International PR Practice: Four Things Practitioners Need to Know
You own your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts right? After all, it’s your pictures, your name, and your connections. However, recent lawsuits show that ownership of social media accounts is not as clear-cut as commonly thought. Organizations increasingly argue they have a proprietary interest not only in social media accounts associated with their businesses, but … Continue reading Is Your Social Media Account Really Yours? Guidelines for PR Practitioners and Organizations to Determine Social Media Ownership
When discussing the laws and regulations of social media, a common refrain is the law is trying to catch up with the technology. However, in 2013 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took one step closer to catching up to social media’s rapid development by providing guidelines for what constitutes legally sound disclosure practices on social … Continue reading #Disclosure: New FTC Social Media Guidelines for PR
Perhaps no group of people possesses more sensitive, important and potentially damaging information about an organization than its employees. Given this concern over social media image, organizations are crafting social media policies that limit what employees can say about their employers online. Since PR practitioners are often viewed as social media gurus, crafting these social … Continue reading Free Speech v. Social Media: Is Your Policy Legal?
This is a summary of the research Cayce Myers presented at this year’s International Public Relations Research Conference. Increasingly public relations practitioners are confronted with clients who have not only PR problems, but legal ones as well. One of the major issues of having a client facing or embroiled in a lawsuit is determining what … Continue reading Litigation and Public Relations: Four Questions Every Practitioner Should Ask