In some divorces, couples fight over who gets the toilet paper.
One of Web Watch’s friends wanted out of his marriage so badly, he left everything behind. The ex-wife got everything – including his clothes. He felt it was easier to just replace all his stuff then it was to have to deal with her in any way.
Yeah, that was a rough divorce, but rest assured that he’s in a much, much happier place now.
Continue reading "In some divorces, couples fight over who gets the toilet paper"
Web Watch has been around for quite a number of years now, having presented our faithful readers with thousands of websites, videos, news articles, and other tidbits of helpful information along the way.
And with that type of success online, we’re also subjected to having our content stolen.
It’s true — and we’ve had to file cease & desist notices to a number of websites that copied our original content and presented it as their own.
Silly rabbit – just because it’s posted on the Internet doesn’t mean that it’s free for the taking.
One question that Web Watch hears a lot from our friends is “Why do some businesses use the term THE BIG GAME or PIGSKIN PARTY, while others use the term SUPER BOWL in their promotional material?” We’ve noticed this ourselves, and are often amused at the lengths some companies go to in associating themselves as being a part of the Professional Football Championship Game without actually mentioning any of the NFL’s trademarks.
Web Watch is not a lawyer, nor are we involved/affiliated with the Super Bowl, the NFL, and its various properties – but we can certainly share some of the things that we’ve learned over the years. Take the following as helpful suggestions, but if you are planning on using any of the NFL’s trademarks yourself – you may want to check with your own legal department and/or followup with the NFL themselves for your own DOs and DONTs list.
Continue reading "When can we use the phrase “Super Bowl”? And other Super Legalities you should be aware of"
Copyright is an important aspect of online life today, and not very many people understand it.
“The Internet is FREE”, they claim. “Everything on the Internet is free for the taking!”
No, not so much. Rule number one of Internet legalities: Just because someone posted it on the Internet doesn’t mean that there is no copyright or that the material is free to be shared/taken.
Fact is, the very act of writing something yourself gives you an automatic copyright to that material that YOU created. Let’s emphasize that YOU created portion again. It has to be original work from YOU for you to claim the copyright – and even then, you can only claim the copyright on the portion that YOU edited.
Even large mass-edited projects like Wikipedia have a copyright… but Wikipedia explicitly says that the individual Wikipedia editors can’t claim copyright on the text that is contributed directly to Wikipedia articles — just adding the text to Wikipedia grants Wikipedia a licence to make that text available for public use. (Content that is already copyrighted outside of Wikipedia and still contributed by the original author falls under a different set of copyright guidelines — be sure to read that WP article for all the copyright details that may pertain to you.)
Continue reading "Is that YouTube video legal? Check out the YouTube Copyright School to learn more"
Remember how much fun Napster was, back in the day?
Yeah, well Napster is officially gone now.
What about LimeWire? KaZaa? Yeah, you shouldn’t be using those either.
Nope, whether you agree with the legalities (or lack thereof) of those sites, none of the old fun “file sharing” apps and websites are valid anymore, thanks to the movie and music industry.
And the proliferation of $0.99 songs and apps on the iTunes store. That kinda helped a little bit.
Of course, you always have that peer-to-peer sharing via BitTorrent, which is a legitimate way to legally share giant files amongst people who need them. Unfortunately, a few bad apples had to go and ruin BitTorrent for everyone else too, by using BT as a way to throw around pirated movies and music.
Continue reading "If you have ever downloaded anything illegally, you may want to visit this site"
So you have your very own Twitter account (like we do, at @webgangsta). And you spend time throughout the day sending out various tweets about whatever is going on in your life.
Some of the things you tweet about are about food you’ve eaten and music you’re listening to. Some of the things you tweet about are work-related, such as telling your followers about some cool new thing that’s up on your company website.
Continue reading "Do you tweet work-related stuff? You may not own your Twitter account…"
Hey, Shorty!: A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment
and Violence in Schools and on the Streets
During the 2010-2011 school year, a survey of over almost 2000 students in grades 7-12 was conducted by the American Association of University Women to find out HOW MANY TEENAGERS WERE VICTIMS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT, whether in person or via text, email, or social media.
Continue reading "48% of teenagers are victims of sexual harassment"
Web Watch would never suggest that you ever evade the police by providing this information to our readers.
Think of this merely as an explanation of how all those criminals manage to escape getting into police custody in those high-action summer movies.
You, being a law-abiding citizen, would pull over immediately upon seeing the flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror, right? Right.
Continue reading "How to escape the police in a high-speed car chase"
Here’s a story that Web Watch is 100% behind: did you know that it is illegal to put anything that isn’t mail into or taped to a residential mailbox?
That’s right — every stupid pizza delivery flyer, real estate agent’s magnet, tree service, maid service, and more — anything that isn’t sent through proper mail channels is considered illegal use of a mailbox and those companies can be subjected to being billed by the Post Office.
Continue reading "Don’t spam your neighborhood mailboxes — you’ll end up paying the price"
Web Watch has worked in New York City. We’ve fought the crowds there, and frankly — rush hour there is absolutely everything you think it would be.
It’s crowded, it’s smelly – and the successful NYC commuters all have this “look”. The “don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, I’m not looking at you, get out of my way” look. Nobody is stopping to smell the roses or window shop or take a look around them at what some call the Most Amazing City In The World.
Nope, they’re too busy making sure that they don’t run into those tourists who wander New York City with their mouths agape, staring up at the tall buildings while they fumble their Kodak Instamatic disposable camera from their safe-and-secure fanny pack.
Continue reading "10 Rules for Walking on the Sidewalk (stop, move, or get out of our way!)"
“I’ll have what she’s having.”
Everybody knows the classic deli line delivered by Billy Crystal’s real-life mom in the movie WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.
But it ends up that what everybody is having in the traditional Jewish deli may not be what you’re going to get anymore. There is a referendum among deli owners to CUT DOWN ON THE SIZE OF THOSE GIANT SANDWICHES, and instead serve meals that are a little bit healthier and better for the customer.
Continue reading "Nobody wants those traditional giant sandwiches at Jewish delis anymore"
Wal-Mart has a policy of having “greeters” at the front door of all their stores.
One of the jobs that the greeters and security staff are tasked with is to double-check receipts to ensure that everything that is being carried out has been paid for per the receipt.
Mary Hill Bonin and her husband are suing Wal-Mart for the Wal-Mart staff doing their job.
Unfortunately, it’s the Wal-Mart staff that allegedly appears to have acted inappropriately in this case. All Mary and “Ricky” wanted to do was buy $2.90 worth of chicken necks. According to the Wal-Mart security guard, the chicken neck was being shoplifted – that is, being taken out of the store without having been paid for.
Continue reading "Wal-Mart refuses to refund $2.90; throws couple in jail (charges were later dropped)"
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Have you ever snuck into a concert?
Web Watch has been lucky enough to have seen pretty much every major artist we’ve ever wanted to see play in concert.
Kenny Rogers? Check.
U2? Check.
Neil Diamond? Check.
Village People? You betcha.
And for the most part, we had tickets or passes for every show. Now, we’ll admit that there may have been one or two where we did end up having to finagle our way into a venue or two, but we swear that we had a legitimate right to be there to justify our sneakiness.
Just because we didn’t have a ticket at the time doesn’t mean that we didn’t know where we could get one.
Continue reading "Have you ever snuck into a concert?" »