IBM checks into hospital IT contract

The contract covers three of New York's largest hospitals--Mount Sinai Hospital, New York University Medical Center and New York University Downtown Hospital.
IBM will administer data centers centralizing IT facilities for each hospital, said David Leiderbach, vice president for IBM's health care industry business. Applications and data for each hospital will be stored in a main data center near Manhattan and a backup facility 100 miles away, with the backup data constantly updated through real-time mirroring.and also they can share the information together easily at the same time.
http://news.cnet.com/IBM-checks-into-hospital-IT-contract
if you look at above sentences carefully you will understand the main issue for this contract is the privacy of the patient that they ignore it . it is good to save the data but sharing the data need additional contract with hospitals and patient to show they give the permission to share their information with the other hospitals .
Please share your idea with me. thanks

“Medical Justice” promotes legally and ethically suspect doctor-patient copyright agreement

There is an excellent article on the ongoing battle between companies and consumers over online criticism, the article noted the following:
The group Medical Justice, which helps protect doctors from meritless malpractice suits, advises its members to have patients sign an agreement that gives the doctor copyright over a Web posting if the patient mentions the doctor or practice.

Dr. Jeffrey Segal, chief executive of Medical Justice, said about half of the group’s 2,500 members use the agreement.

“I, like everyone else, like to hear two sides of the story,” he said. “The problem is that physicians are foreclosed from ever responding because of state and federal privacy laws. In the rare circumstance that a posting is false, fictional or fraudulent, the doctor now has the tool to get that post taken down.”
This so-called “agreement” strikes me as both legally and ethically suspect. Not only does copyright law generally require written assignments of copyright to be for some kind of payment (what is the payment here? The medical treatment? I thought that was what health insurance and co-pays were for?) but unless it is a work-for hire or some other kind of ongoing employment relationship, you generally can’t force people to assign their copyright in a web posting before it is written, also in my opinion they should ask the paitiont before share the information with the other may be they do not want their information share with other parties this ia their privacy rights ,do you agree?

http://cyberlawcases.com/category/contract/

contract and Copyright Infringement

Jacobsen’s copyright infringement claim would probably be unremarkable in any other case that lacked so many precedent-making issues, and perhaps it remains unremarkable despite this context. However, it is an assertion of a fairly thin copyright on behalf of a free software project that otherwise is extremely generous in granting permissions for downstream copying, modifying, and distributing its works. To be fair, Jacobsen, who was also in attendance at oral argument, clearly does not relish litigation and would prefer to write model train software in peace. Only when Katzer sent demand letters requesting significant patent licensing fees and when Katzer’s allegations made Jacobsen feel that his reputation and even job were jeopardized did he determine that litigating the case to clear his name was essential. Furthermore, if Jacobsen’s allegations are true, it is one thing for a free software project to grant a generous license to those who agree to abide by its terms, including particularly attribution, and quite another thing for that free software project to be expected to acquiesce in someone stripping out all such attributions and passing off the project’s work as their own for commercial gain. Nonetheless, because the copyrighted work at issue in this case is a selection and arrangement of data, it represents a type of copyrighted work that many free software proponents would, in many cases, prefer not be copyrightable at all but due to there is lack of sufficient contract elements sometimes parties catch in trouble.
so we should be careful about the contract very much.

electronic coupons contract

Response Reward Systems v. Meijer Inc. 189 F. Supp. 2d 1332 (M.D. Fla. 2002)
Response Reward, a Florida company, owns patents on issuing electronic coupons
Meijer, Inc. is a Michigan corporation that operates supermarkets
Meijer operated a website that offered electronic coupons
Response Reward alleged that Meijer was infringing its patents
Response Reward could have sued in Michigan, where Meijer was located. Instead, it sued in Florida
The Florida long-arm statute permits jurisdiction over a defendant who is “engaged in substantial and not isolated activity” within Florida
Meijer’s website was accessible from anywhere, but Meijer
was not licensed in Florida
had no offices, stores, employees or property in Florida
did not advertise in Florida
issued coupons which could not be used in Florida
BUT, some stores owned by others accepted the coupons in Florida
The Florida long-arm statute, as interpreted by the Florida courts, permits jurisdiction over a defendant who commits an act outside Florida that causes damage within Florida, e.g. patent infringement
Is it constitutional for Florida to exercise jurisdiction over Meijer?
No. Meijer did not have minimum contracts with Florida.
Think about it. Should there be jurisdiction just because the patent owner happens to be in Florida?
https://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuit-related-cases.asp?ID=24641

Contractual Liability

I found a very interesting case about contractual liability that I’d like to share with you:

Salvage Assoc’n v’s CAP, 1995
March 1987: Salvage Association contracted CAP Financial Services to develop specs for an accounting system
July 1987: specs delivered & accepted
Further contract for CAP to implement the specified system by May 1988
However, delays & problems emerged… Errors were found in the specification…
Problems with telecoms link…
Key staff left project…
CAP proposed “re-analysis & re-design” , Salvage organised an independent review
Consultants said CAP plan was impossible
Salvage terminated & filed for damages…
Salvage went to court and claimed damages of £800,000 to recover costs, also claiming CAP’s liability limitation clause (£25,000) was unfair
The judge ruled for Salvage:
 Salvage were justified in terminating contract – it was clear CAP could not deliver a system
 CAP’s limitation clause breached the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 – any such limitation had to be reasonable; CAP’s wasn’t.

do you think judge made a good decision?
In my point of view the judge made a good decision due to CAP did not act in terms of the contract and they had to examine the software before sell or implementing in other organization, but also salvage should ask Consultants befor accepting the contract , do you agree?

Hijacking the Digital Signature!

All of us know about digital signature but for whom that did not know digital signature is a piece of data that identifies the beginner of a document. It utilizes asymmetric encryption, where one key (private key) is used to create the signature code and a different but related key (public key) is used to verify it.
BUT as you know it has some problems: Security and confidentiality of private key, possible misuse and the legal implications which arise.
Usually criminal use it for hijacking: first an authenticated user had established with a remote service for this attack, the target was chosen to be the e-government portal. The web application that handles access to the financial information of a citizen requires the user to digitally sign a document to prove her /his identity. If a digital signature is used to authenticate a user to a remote application, the relaying server can let the packets through until the login process is complete. Then, it can interrupt the communication to the victim, thereby hijacking the user’s session; when the login is successful the server issues a session cookie. This cookie is used in subsequent requests by the browser to tag these requests as being sent by the previously authenticated user. The first attack uses Internet Explorer to steal the session cookie after a successful login procedure, thus allowing an attacker to duplicate the session. To steal the session cookie, the attacker requires local access to the victim’s machine with the privileges of the user running the browser. The easiest way to perform the attack is a malicious browser plug-in!
With browser helper objects, one can write components (specifically, in-process Component Object Model (COM) components) that Internet Explorer will load each time it starts up. Such objects run in the same memory context as the browser and can perform any action on the available windows and modules. Through a special interface, the browser helper object can access the functions of Internet Explorer, thus being able to read and manipulate data.(read more :http://www.iseclab.org/papers/citizen_technical.pdf)
As you know anybody can put you in trouble if they could easily access to your signature and they can contract with many parties and abuse it to self interest!

Another court deals major blow to DVD copting

A California appeals court on Wednesday overturned a lower court ruling that had paved the way for a $10,000 DVD copying system called Kaleidescape and other products from the company with the same name.

The 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose, California, was the second court in two days to rule that companies are bound (.pdf) by the entire Content Scramble System licensing regime, which prevents duplicating DVDs.

A San Francisco federal judge ruled late Tuesday that RealNetworks’ DVD-copying software was a breach of the Content Scramble System license, which is required for DVDs and computers to play DVDs. The license allows DVD players to descramble the encrypted code on a DVD, but the license prohibits the duplication of a DVD. Both RealNetworks and Kaleidescape claimed a loophole in the CSS license allowed the copying of DVDs.

In both cases, Kaleidescape of Sunnyvale, California, and RealNetworks, of Seattle, claim that the CSS license issued by a partner of the motion picture studios — the DVD Copy Control Association — did not require, as the studios alleged, that a DVD be in the machine to play back the movie. Hence, a copy could be made, they claimed.


court decision did not immediately block Kaleidescape from marketing its wares. Instead, it ordered a lower court to review the entire CSS contract to determine whether Kaleidescape’s DVD-copying machines are in breach of contract.

A lower state court had ruled that, because some of the terms of the contract were forwarded to Kaleidescape after the deal was signed years ago, the company was not obliged to follow them — including specifications that the DVD be in the machine during playback.

The Kaleidescape case dealt almost exclusively with California contract law. A ruling in favor of Kaleidescape likely would have presented a showdown between prevailing interests — California contract law and the DMCA
Do you agree?
Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/another-court-deals-major-blow-to-dvd-copying/#ixzz0qWSMzhu3

Hackers launch "Contract of Settlements" attack on inboxes

The emails, which have the subject line "Contact of Settlements", pretend to relate to a contract. Recipients are told that if they agree to the terms of the contract they should expect "payment on Friday for the first consignment".
Attached to the emails is a password-protected ZIP file, contract_1.zip, which contains a malicious Trojan horse. Sophos is intercepting the emails as spam, and has added detection of the malware component as Troj/Agent-LNW.

I, myself sometimes feel so curious about an unsolicited contract materialising in my inbox BUT I know if I'll enter the password to decrypt the file, open the file contained within means end up infecting my PC.
This latest attempt to infect the computers of innocent internet owners echoes a series of attacks we saw late in 2008, many of which used the names of well-known companies as an extra temptation for users to open them.so please becareful!
as you see it is oneof the type of computer crime in cyberlaw and it has illegal action

contract malware spammed out

The malicious messages that are being spammed out are pretending to be changes to a contract - some related to business activities with well known firms like Johnson & Johnson, Starbucks or Google, and others pretending to be connected with a retirement plan.The dangerous files attached to these emails in the samples we're seeing in our traps are called contract.zip or New_Contract.zip. Sophos intercepts them as Troj/Invo-Zip.
If you use other vendors' products, make sure that they are properly updated and capable of stopping these threats.
this is also another computer crime in cyberlaw.

privacy in contract

I have came to this idea that in recent years modern contract law will essentially be the death of individual privacy - the basic argument being that people want their toys, so they'll click on abusive clickthroughs and EULAs that essentially sign away their personal data .
there is an intresting case that i invited you to read : recently Ben Wright has proposed that contracts could be harnessed on behalf of privacy - essentially, that consumers could put up their own websites with terms of use that require businesses to respect their personal information .Ben even points to a case where a website's terms of use were enforced against a consumer who made a contract over the phone, to demonstrate how the mere existence of the terms of use can be used in litigation.(see:http://www.texasbar.com/Template.cfm?Section=Member_Directory&template=/Customsource/MemberDirectory/
MemberDirectoryDetail.cfm&ContactID=210823)

I think Ben's argument is pleading, and I'd like to agree with it...unfortunately; there are a couple of problems with the argument that prevent me from endorsing it, as appealing as it may be. First, as a practical matter, it would be difficult to show that a company which sells an individual's personal data ever visited the website where the privacy protective terms of use were posted. In the case Ben cited to show that terms of use could be enforced even against a consumer who made a contract over the telephone, it was easy to prove that the consumer visited the website which hosted the terms of use, because the consumer was trying to enforce the website's privacy policy. However,a company which sells consumer data actually visited the websites of the consumers whose data is being sold. Second, even if it were possible to show that the a company which sells consumer data visited the consumer's website, there is no reason to believe that a court would enforce the website's privacy protective terms of use. For example, in the case of In re Northwest Airlines Litigation, the court refused to allow consumers to sue Northwest Airlines for a violation of its privacy policy. Given that, I see no reason to believe that a court would be any more solicitous of privacy protective terms of use that a consumer might put on his or her website.
I think the practical obstacles to implementing the idea are such that Ben's idea isn't something that most people can rely on.

"Minimum contacts"

"Minimum contacts" is a term used in the United States law of civil procedure to determine when it is appropriate for a court in one state to assert personal jurisdiction over a defendant from another state. The United States Supreme Court has decided a number of cases that have established and refined the principle that it is unfair for a court to assert jurisdiction over a party unless that party's contacts with the state in which that court sits are such that the party "could reasonably expect to be haled into court" in that state. This jurisdiction must "not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_contacts)
I know that this topic is not clear yet so to understand it better please read the below case:

Bragg v. Linden Research, Inc case

Linden is an online virtual world that provides virtual land in the lower price than the market. Mark Bragg found that by purchasing virtual land he can buy a land that valued $1000 only for $300. he did not read the contract carefully and also the contract had not clear detail so after a while Linden Lab claimed that Marc Bragg had violated their Terms of Servce by URL-hacking also Bragg’s account was suspended while Linden Lab conducted an investigation, and later closed completely. Bragg argued that by closing his account, Linden Lab also dissolved his virtual assets, which he valued at between US$4,000 and US$6,000.
Judge finding that Linden Lab met the minimum contacts threshold by his nation-wide personal marketing efforts to publicize Marc Bragg .The Court also denied Linden Lab’s motion to compel arbitration, finding that the Terms of Service represented an adhesion contract that was unjustly biased towards Linden Lab.
But in my opinion Bragg had some mistake he should view virtual property, read additional materials about purchasing virtual property, interact with other avatars that owned virtual property, and, ultimately, purchase virtual property themselves.

click-wrap

Have you ever face with a web site that you have to click on "I agree" to download or having transaction? This is a click-wrap agreement, made at or before the time of purchase on a web site. The purchaser is required to click “I agree” before the transaction will continue, the installation will proceed or the user will gain access to the web site.There are issues about how to treat terms that are not proposed or discloseduntil after the user has already agreed to go forward with the transaction and has tendered the required consideration. There are also questions related to disclosure about whether there was assent, when was it manifested, is it only for terms about which the user had knowledge or awareness, or does it extend to terms and conditions which the user had not read or understood.task force of the American Bar Association has released a set of fifteen strategies in five areas: opportunity to review terms; display of terms; acceptance or rejection of terms; opportunity to correct errors; and keeping records to prove assent.
read more : ELECTRONIC CONTRACTING: LEGAL PROBLEM
OR LEGAL SOLUTION?
By Amelia
I believe that we have to careful about this type of agreement because I, myself before read this article usually do not care about that and most of the time I just click on agree without reading the agreement and now I found that if I face with any problem because I pushed the agree, I could not defense!
What is your opinion my friend?
H. Boss 55

Contract Problem

one of my friend hamed bought a software and the software disks were sealed inside an envelope and on the envelope was printed the contract. but he did not know if he opens the envelope, he should agree to all the terms of the contract.
He lend it to his friend and this friend also lend it to another person and this process continued until the software received by one of the company's employee that made this software and the company sued hamed because he demolish their revenue by this action he is in trouble now what was his problem and what is this kind of contract named? please help him

The Contract Signing Problem

The lack of atomicity is the primary cause of the contract signing problem.When two parties are connected to each other via a possibly unreliable network, ensuring atomicity becomes a serious problem.In a contract signing problem, there are two or more parties who are trying to agree on a contract. Each party will digitally sign the contract to signal their agreement.A variant of the contract signing problem is the return receipt problem or certified mail problem.
see the below example:
Alice and Bob jointly write down the contract, or have their lawyers do it for them. Now both Alice and Bob have a copy of the contract. The contract is not signed yet. Next, Alice signs her copy of the contract and sends it to Bob.
When he receives the signed contract, Bob signs his contract and sends it to Alice.
Now both Alice and Bob have a contract which has both their signatures on it. If Alice wants a return receipt from Bob, then the process is very similar: Alice indicates in her message that she wants a return receipt, so Bob obligingly fills one out and sends it back,
This protocol does not work. Here is a story which shows why:

One day Alice and Bob wanted to sign a contract. "Hey," Alice e-mailed Bob, "I will bet you US$15 that the Nikkei rises 3% tomorrow!" Bob idled a moment, then sent back the message "OK, but if not, then I get your CD collection." After thinking a moment, they decided to make up a real contract ... just in case one of them got "cold feet."

Alice and Bob drew up a contract. Alice signed her copy and sent it to Bob. Then she waited. She waited some more. Still no response from Bob.

Suppose that the next day, the Nikkei rose 2.5%. Eagerly anticipating her money, Alice e-mails Bob, including a copy of their contract. Much to her dismay, Bob's response is "Oh, so that's where that contract went...I thought you didn't want to do that anymore. I mean, I didn't hear anything from you!"

Alternatively, maybe the Nikkei rose 3.5%. The next day, Alice receives an email: "Coming for CD collection. See you at 2:00 - Bob." Alice sits back in her chair and wonders just what happened.

What Went Wrong?
When Bob stopped responding, Alice assumed that he had not received her copy of the contract. In fact, Bob was waiting to see whether he liked the way the contract would turn out. Only after he was sure of the outcome did he decide whether or not to honor the contract. He could do this because Alice was bound to the contract before Bob.

Notice that Alice has no way to determine if Bob's failure to respond is malicious. Furthermore, she has no means of convincing others of his malicious actions. This is the contract signing problem.
read more:http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds7-1/contract.html#MERKLE

E-contract law in U.S.

"United States basic contractual rules are found in the Uniformed Commercial Code (U.C.C.) and state judicial opinions published by the Restatement of Contracts. The U.C.C. is a set of uniformed commercial rules that have been adopted by most states. U.C.C. Article 2 refers to the sale of goods and Article 2A refers to the lease of goods including computer equipment. Thus, the U.C.C. applies to electronic contracts for the sale of goods. The U.C.C. does not apply to the online sale of services.the U.C.C. clearly applies to the online sale of goods; and it may also apply to the sale of certain electronic materials depending on the jurisdiction, the type of 'electronic material,' and the amount of service that this sale entails."
see more :http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?id=1913&s=latestnews

What is E-contract means?

E-contract is a contract modeled, specified, executed and deployed by a software system. E-contracts are conceptually very similar to traditional (paper based) commercial contracts. Vendors present their products, prices and terms to prospective buyers. Buyers consider their options, negotiate prices and terms (where possible), place orders and make payments. Then, the vendors deliver the purchased products. Nevertheless, because of the ways in which it differs from traditional commerce, electronic commerce raises some new and interesting technical and legal challenges. Therefore the object is to create default rules for attributing a message to a party so as to avoid any fraud and discrepancy in the contract.
WROTE BY:Vasudha Tamrakar & Pratibha Pal (http://www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/ecta.htm)