Law Commons^™

To Win Friends And Influence People: Regulation And Enforcement Of Influencer Marketing After Ten Years Of The Endorsement Guides, Craig C. Carpenter, Mark Bonin Ii

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

For the last ten years, social media influencer marketing has been regulated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under the FTC’s Section 5 “unfair practices” authority, guided by the Endorsement Guides, a “best practices” document published by the FTC. This is a fairly “light” regulatory scheme where violators typically enter no-money, no-fault consent decrees and generally undertake to do a better job following the Endorsement Guides in the future. During this time, the practice has flourished, and companies are spending significant portions of their marketing budgets on social media influencer advertising. Recently, the FTC has submitted proposals for increased enforcement …

Buy My Vote: Online Reviews For Sale, Kendall L. Short

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The Internet has granted consumers access to a wealth of information to use in researching products and services. A substantial portion of this information consists of online consumer reviews, which hold great influence over consumers' purchasing decisions due to their perceived honesty and independence from the company. The problem with relying on these reviews, however, is that real consumers may not be the authors; instead, companies often hire writers to fabricate reviews, known as "opinion spam," which can either be positive for the hiring company or negative toward an innocent competitor. Because these fake reviews are difficult to detect, both …

Trolling For Standards: How Courts And The Administrative State Can Help Deter Patent Holdup And Promote Innovation, Niels J. Melius

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Antitrust law and patent law share the common goal of improving economic welfare by facilitating competition and innovation. But these legal fields conflict when baseless claims of patent infringement disrupt the competitive process. In its eBay decision, the Supreme Court muddied the precedential waters by promulgating a vague doctrine of injunctive relief in patent infringement cases. In the years since, a split has emerged in the district courts on the question of which entities generally qualify for injunctive relief as an additional remedy to damages. This uncertainty has failed to mitigate an antitrust phenomenon known as "patent holdup," whereby an …

Silence Of The Spam: Improving The Can-Spam Act By Including An Expanded Private Cause Of Action, David J. Rutenberg

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In the last decade, email spam has become more than just an annoyance for email users. Unsolicited messages now comprise more than 95 percent of all email sent worldwide. This costs US businesses billions of dollars in lost productivity each year. The US Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 to regulate the spam industry. Unfortunately, data show that spam only increased since the Act's passage. Part of the reason for this failure is that the Act only authorizes the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, and Internet Service Providers to bring action under its provisions. Each of these authorized …

Dr. Strange-Rating Or: How I Learned That The Motion Picture Association Of America's Film Rating System Constitutes False Advertising, Jason K. Albosta

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a trade association whose members include film production studios, distributors, and theater chains, administers the most popular system for rating the content contained in the vast majority of publicly exhibited motion pictures in the United States. The stated goal of the rating scheme is to caution parents about any objectionable content that a film contains in order to allow them to make informed decisions about which films they will allow their children to see. While the rating scheme has undergone several changes since its establishment to further its stated goal, a fundamental conflict …

The Government Tunes In To Tune Out The Marketing Of Violent Entertainment To Kids, Shannon Mccoy

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Note examines the recent investigation conducted by the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC" or "Commission") and its 2001 Follow-Up to that inquiry. The September 2000 Report ("Report") concluded that the entertainment industry intentionally and aggressively advertises both R and PG-13 movies to children under the age of 18. As a solution, the FTC recommended self-regulation by the entertainment industry. The 2001 Follow-Up to the Report ("Follow-Up") found that although the movie industry has made progress, a greater effort must be exerted to successfully eliminate the marketing of violent entertainment to children.' Both the Report and the Follow-Up demonstrate that self-regulation …

The Recording Industry, Minimum Advertised Pricing Policies And Non-Price Vertical Restraints Of Trade, M. Courtney Mccormick

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Note argues that the recording industry's cooperative advertising programs do not run afoul of federal antitrust laws and, in fact, promote interbrand competition. It examines the implications of the cooperative advertising programs adopted by record companies in light of current federal antitrust law. Contrary to claims made by the FTC, the recording industry's actions can withstand antitrust scrutiny because Minimum Advertised Pricing ("MAP") policies serve pro-competitive business purposes. As will be discussed in further detail below, the recording industry has a legitimate interest in pursuing policies that help traditional music retailers stay in business in the face of crippling …

Cyberjacking, Mouse Trapping, And The Ftc Act: Are Federal Consumer Protection Laws Helping Or Hurting Online Consumers?, Kenneth Sanney

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Only the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can bring a federal cause of action against a company whose business practices or actions deceive consumers. However, the FTC's power is limited; it can intervene on behalf of consumers only when there is a pattern of misconduct by the business that threatens the public interest. But where the scams themselves are difficult to spot, patterns may be virtually impossible to establish. Moreover, even successful FTC actions may yield little in the way of preventative or compensatory benefit for the individual user.

My aim in this Note, therefore, is to offer one possible means …

Filling The Black Hole Of Cyberspace: Legal Protections For Online Privacy, R. Craig Tolliver

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The Internet is a unique and wholly new medium of worldwide human communication. This pronouncement of the United States Supreme Court echoes what most of the American population has known for some time. The emergence of cyberspace has dramatically changed the nature of electronic communications, and consumers are conducting online transactions at a tremendous pace. While this revolution has obviously increased the amount and types of information available to American consumers, it has also achieved a different result: businesses now have access to an unprecedented amount of personal information. In turn, there exists a danger that this information will be …