On The Shady Side... Of Green

Greenwashing has been a "thing" for some time. Now shareholders are making proposals based on it.

What is greenwashing? My spellcheck doesn't like the word. Apparently, it is the environmental equivalent of whitewashing, and it's been in use for thirty years.  With whitewashing, one spins something "bad" to sound "not so bad".  With greenwashing, one spins something not environmentally friendly to seem... environmentally responsible. It's mostly a PR and honest advertising issue. It may involve oxymorons such as "clean diesel", maybe "clean coal", and "100% organic".

Legal bloggers for Jenner & Block LLP  Todd Toral and P. J. Novack penned an interesting explanation of greenwashing, and a groundbreaking attempt by Greenpeace and others to use the old Green Guides offensively against a Big Oil company for, allegedly, misleading consumers about the greenness and social responsibility of its work.

https://consumer.jenner.com/2021/04/does-novel-greenwashing-enforcement-action-portend-a-new-trend.html#page=1

Speaking of Honest advertising, the legal blogsphere is buzzing (a little bit) about dishonest influencers.  Apparently, the public is not smart enough to figure out that if a celebrity endorsement looks like for profit product placement, sounds like paid product placement... it most probably is a glorified advertisement.  The thing is, ones greenback-related motivations have to be disclosed every time, and perhaps the same goes for book promotion.

For the IP Law Watch blog of law firm K&L Gates of Boston, blogger Keisha Phippen discusses the topic of responsible influencing, and offers excellent and easy tips for how to avoid acting on the shady side of the law.

https://www.iplawwatch.com/2021/04/are-you-influencing-responsibly/

Finally, for today's loosely linked theme of shady doings, green stuff, money and deception is a great green gem about ransomware put out by Stephen Noel O'Connor of Leman.

Go here for the full article as a .pdf

https://thoughtleadership.leman.ie/post/102gt6m/leman-cyber-update-ransomware-explained

 

Or read the extract here:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=91e09e07-b9e4-4fab-ba95-b45f6fc5d453

Did you know that in some countries in may be illegal to pay ransomware? 

Oh, and if you got the letter from Kroger about their pharmacy records being hacked at Accellion, remember there is a time limit (window closes May 31st)  to take up that offer for 24 months of Experian "Identity Works" id theft coverage. Separately, American Anesthesiology was compromised in a phishing attack. It might be wise to freeze your credit (free to do, easy and free to undo as long as you retain your PIN).

Equifax 1-800-525-6285

Experian 1-888-397-3742

TransUnion 1-800-680-7289

 

 

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

Hope For A Copyright Small Claims Court

According to the Authors Guild, it costs approximately $150,000 for a copyright owner to take a copyright infringer to court.

As I pointed out in a recent post, as long as Copyright law on the internet provides that, if a Takedown notice is ignored, or if a counter-notice (even a bogus one, or a misinformed one) is filed in response to a takedown notice, the copyright infringing work will stay up and continue to make money for the pirate and the pirate's hosts for ever, unless the author can spare $150,000 to pursue a lawsuit.

The Authors Guild reports that a Congressman in Washington has promised to introduce a bill, perhaps to set up a small copyright claims court.

Read more on https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/authors-guild-hits-the-capitol/

In other copyright infringement news, my novella ebook Mating Net apparently remains illegally available--ignoring multiple Takedown notices from me-- on Mobilism.org and the alleged copyright infringer from Ontario, KellyKing29 has now apparently uploaded over 20,000 copyrighted ebooks to the site.

Of course, it could all be ransomeware!

A quick visit to the page http://booksmobile.org/viewtopic.php?f=1292&t=719315  will show you how "AdChoices" makes copyright infringement profitable for Mobilism and its users, displaying pitches from Sterling Heights Dodge Jeep  also Parkway Chrysler Dodge (astounding how Google knows what is close to my IP location, but cannot distinguish a pirate site by its content and traffic!)

Another pirate site newly on my radar is Memoirbook.top  http://memoirbook.top . This site has an interesting blurb on any page stating that their tactics will make publishers sad.  They appear to post book titles, but mix up the authors' names, so for instance, I might find that one of my titles has been authored by Daphne Du Maurier (but the cover art shows that it's my book by me).  You might find that you've downloaded ransomeware if you try to download an ebook.

Authors should know that the law does not require you to download potential ransomeware in order to have a good faith belief that your copyright has been infringed.


All the best,
Rowena Cherry