Memorandum

To: TLJ Alert readers.
From: David Carney.
Re: Disclosure of Information to Third Parties.
Date: January 1, 2003.

I. Prior TLJ Alert Policy. The Tech Law Journal Daily E-Mail Alert (TLJ Alert) has had a published rule since the inception of the TLJ Alert in August of 2000 that it does not sell, rent, or transfer its subscription list to the TLJ Alert to third parties. In 2001, prior to converting the TLJ Alert to a paid subscription basis, three minor exceptions to this basic rule were announced. First, David Carney, the sole proprietor of Tech Law Journal, may incorporate, and transfer ownership of the subscription list to this corporation, of which he will be the sole owner. Since TLJ is a one person operation, this transfer would have insignificant consequences.

Second, the fact that someone is a subscriber may be disclosed to someone else at the same workplace for the purpose of resolving a delivery problem. That is, it is impossible to talk to a subscriber's secretary or IT staff about why a copy of the e-mail did not arrive without telling them that about the subscriber.

Third, the fact that someone is a subscriber may be disclosed to someone else at the same workplace in connection with arranging for group discounts, billings, subscriptions, forms, and other subscription related matters. Actually, one person has insisted that I provide him with a subscription, and bill his company, but not disclose to his company who he is. I determined that this would be unreasonable. I am sure his company's accounting department would have reached the same conclusion, and not paid the bill.

II. Prior Web Site Policy. The Tech Law Journal web site collects access logs that enable analysis of web site traffic. This has been used at times to estimate overall traffic to the web site, traffic to individual pages, and the referring websites. (By far the leading referrers to the TLJ web site are Google and other search engines. The most visited web pages have been the home page and the calendar page.) However, only rarely has this ever provided information that I have been able to tie to an individual. And individual level information has not been the purpose.

III. New Procedures and Policies. This will change now in several respects. There will be e-mail monitoring for the purpose of detecting infringers. When this data is analyzed along with subscriber information, information obtained from e-mails, phone calls and other personal contacts, and other information, it will enable me in some cases to build individual level, and entity level, data regarding pertaining to infringement.

Moreover, this information regarding infringement may be disclosed to third parties. First, it may be disclosed in connection with efforts to enforce rights of authorship, rights arising under the Copyright Act, and other proprietary rights. This might include, but not be limited to, disclosure related to the following:

1. filing a complaint and other pleadings, submitting argument, and introducing evidence in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a suit alleging copyright infringement and other claims;

2. filing a petition with the Copyright Office for revocation of a registration of a copyright, in the case of a registration of a work that constitutes or contains a work of authorship that was authored by David Carney; and

3. filing a complaint with an ethics panel of a state bar association, an Inspector General or professional conduct office of a federal agency, or a Dean or academic integrity panel of a law school or university.

Second, lists of known infringers, and persons known to make false claims of authorship, may be shared with other electronic publishers. This is not being done now. Nor are their plans to do this. This, however, may be done at some time in the future.

This would not be a sharing of lists of subscribers. Rather it would be a sharing of lists of infringers. This might facilitate decisions by electronic publishers not to make sales of electronic products to persons or entities with a history of misuse of those products.