How would one comply with a court order to unpublish unlimitable information? (If this has been asked, please deduplicate; I searched but couldn't find anything similar. Thanks!) This is wholly hypothetical, I hope. Let's have two people, &quot;Alice&quot; and &quot;Bob&quot;. Alice publishes some data that, for whatever legal reason, they ought not to publish. Bob gets some sort of court order which directly instructs Alice to stop publishing the content. From what I've heard, the court may deputize Alice somewhat, instructing them to not just cease publication, but also to actively inform other publishers that they must cease &amp; desist. If those other publishers continue, then Bob may complain to the court again, and the court may order those other publishers to cease as well. We are now in the 21st century, though, and the content may be available via e.g. Bittorrent, a key-value data store which can make data internationally available as long as one person, somewhere in the world, is reachable and has a copy of the data. This can create a problem for Alice; let's imagine a third person, &quot;Mallory&quot;, who sits beyond the court's jurisdiction. Mallory openly flouts the court order by publishing a Bittorrent key (a torrent file or magnet link) which allows anybody to obtain a copy of the data. (Also note that tools like Magnetico can be used to let anybody become an eavesdropper, passively learning Bittorrent keys as they transit the network. Mallory may &quot;openly flout&quot; the court without the equivalent of a conspicuous notice in a public place.) Given that Alice has been instructed by the court to stop publishing the data, and given that Mallory refuses to stop publishing the data, what might Alice be obliged to do to comply with the court? Since this is an international question, answers can pertain to any jurisdiction!
united-states This answer analyzes the question under U.S. law, although it is really generally applicable in all countries with a common law legal system. I'm not familiar with how non-common law countries address this issue at this level of granularity. Given that Alice has been instructed by the court to stop publishing the data, and given that Mallory refuses to stop publishing the data, what might Alice be obliged to do to comply with the court? Very little. This is why courts very rarely issue orders like this one. Disobedience to a court order is enforced with a contempt of court proceeding against a party that allegedly knowingly and willfully failed to comply with the court order. But an inability to comply with the court order (at least if this is not due to sabotage by the party subject to the order after that party learns of the order's existence) is a complete defense to contempt of court sanctions. Contractually, this is why most non-disclosure agreements have liquidated damages and actual money damages remedies as well as the remedy of injunctive relief. If harm that can't be unwound results from conduct taken before an injunction is in place, or as a result of a breach of an injunction that the person who was ordered to do something can't remedy, then a court imposes money damages and/or punitively imposes a criminal fine or incarceration on a party who defied a court order.
It is any law protecting me from the people that distrubute a video of me falling the stairs and shared without my permision? No. Your permission is not necessary for distributing or watching that video. The recording was from your workplace, where your entitlement to privacy is quite limited unlike few settings such as (1) your attorney's office in the course of obtaining legal advice for which the disclosure was needed, or (2) your home. Even if such an entitlement existed, your decision to share that recording with the person who was with you generally constitutes a waiver of your right to privacy regarding that incident. The waiver would apply even if California had some legislation akin to the EU's GDPR. Your description nowhere indicates that that person had a statutory or equitable duty of confidentiality. It is also highly doubtful that you would wish to block the distribution of the video if people instead of mocking you expressed something pleasant or encouraging to you. people who I don't even know their names come to me to comment about the video and joke about not falling again. That is not unlawful in and of itself. Since the matter does not involve a protected category such as sex, race, religion, or disability, pursuing a claim of hostile work environment would be quite a stretch. It would also be futile because any relief would not cover outsiders who watch the video and feel like joking about it. The notion of harassment entails a pattern of conduct (meaning that a person engages twice or more in that conduct) that causes a reasonable person to feel annoyed or concerned for his safety. Even if someone engages makes a few jokes that cause you to get annoyed, any petition for restraining orders seems unlikely to succeed. Sooner rather than later, the jokes will get old and people will move on.
A more general version of the question, as far as I can see, is &quot;Is Google Drive legal?&quot;. I can create an account and upload files to Google Drive, and I can open them from the cloud using various interfaces. I can directly open only certain files types, others I have to download to the device that I'm using in order to open the file. There are various file storage systems that allow this, most or all of which seem to use some sort of system of password access, file-access permissions and encryption to block access by unauthorized individuals. All systems seems to allow &quot;sharing&quot; of a specified file. Google and colleague escape liability by complying with 17 USC 512 aka the DMCA safe harbor provisions. Basically, they don't know, they don't select uploads, they have a removal procedure, they don't know that the material is infringing, and they &quot;are not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent&quot;. There is a chance that you would be sued for inducing copyright infringement, see MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd, specifically We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties You describe a situation that is unlikely to be found to constitute inducement to infringing, instead it is &quot;enabling possible infringing&quot;, and mere possibilty of doing something bad with a tool does not make you liable for selling a tool, under current US law. An eyebrow would be raised, though, as to why this service only allows ebooks to be deposited.
As a designer and programmer you virtually have nothing to worry about apart from your wasted time. Such a network would likely never evolve (unless in Darknet) just because the would-be blockchain node owners would not have the balls to keep the nodes up. If a court in country A orders information deleted, the node owners residing in A would have to comply. Technically impossible? Well, then take the node down. Information will be available from nodes in other countries anyway? Does not matter — nodes in A will be taken down regardless. Note that the right-to-be-forgotten is only a small part of the obstacle. Defamation, hate speech, child pornography etc. published in a system that does not allow to delete information will cause the whole system to be deleted.
They'd have a big hurdle to clear. According to 17 U.S. Code § 512(c): (d)Information Location Tools.—A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the provider referring or linking users to an online location containing infringing material or infringing activity, by using information location tools, including a directory, index, reference, pointer, or hypertext link, if the service provider— (1) (A) does not have actual knowledge that the material or activity is infringing; (B) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or (C) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material; (2) does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity; and (3) upon notification of claimed infringement as described in subsection (c)(3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity, except that, for purposes of this paragraph, the information described in subsection (c)(3)(A)(iii) shall be identification of the reference or link, to material or activity claimed to be infringing, that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate that reference or link. So long as these conditions are met, Google is immune. So, what is ESPN going to argue? Are they going to argue that Google had actual knowledge of infringement? Are they going to argue that Google received a financial benefit directly attributable to the streaming? Are they going to argue that they sent a DMCA notice to Google and the links were not then expeditiously removed? Or are they going to argue something else entirely?
As Polygnome points out in the comments, the first step is to determine who owns the original copyright on your mother's work now. This will be her heirs. If you are the sole heir then no problem. If the copyright was explicitly left to you in her will, also no problem. If there are multiple heirs and no explicit assignment of the copyright, then problem. The copyright will probably be considered part of the chattels of the estate (i.e. everything except real estate). If those are allocated fractionally (e.g. half each to two siblings) then the copyright probably followed that principle, unless you have already come to some agreement about it. If you are on good terms with the siblings then the best bet is to just make a deal for their part of the copyright. You could just ask them to sign it over to you, or you could cut them in for a percentage of future royalties. That makes the situation 100% clear, and any publisher is going to require 100% clarity before they consider offering a contract. Once you have the whole copyright you can go ahead and register. I've looked through the registration process and it doesn't actually ask about derivative works. What it wants to know is whether you own the copyright, and who were the authors (including works for hire). So just fill it in on that basis.
If you are worried that some secret will become public, you should find and meet with an attorney, not a financial adviser or other nonlawyer. Your attorney is able to shield your secret information from disclosure in ways other professionals cannot. Raise any credit score issues you're concerned about. In general, the public has a right to access judicial records. See Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., 435 US 589, 597 (1978) (noting that the right is rarely litigated and not clearly defined). That right is not absolute; some records can be sealed, which means that the public can't read them. Local rules govern when that happens. I don't think the existence of a civil lawsuit could be made secretly except in special circumstances. Likewise, the plaintiff usually must identify herself, except in special circumstances. A plaintiff should assume that everything about the lawsuit--who filed it, against whom, what evidence arises, the trial, and who wins and loses--will be public.
One big hole in any scheme that relies on copyright is that it could not preclude people talking about the previous content or talking about you. This is well established First Amendment law. For example, see Near v. Minnesota 283 U.S. 697 (1931), which holds that except in rare judicially established exceptions (relating to military information, obscenity, and inciting acts of violence), government censorship is unconstitutional. Thus, no statutory scheme could be used to prevent third parties who happened to have seen the material while it was freely available from re-iterating what they had seen, or talking about it, or talking about the author (you). People could even reproduce portions of the published content. Some types of reproduction would be protected as fair use in the US, especially if the reproduction is for the purpose of criticism. (17 USC 107, and this previous Law.SE answer) The closest approach would be to protect your work as trade secret, making sure that anyone that you share it with agrees to non-disclosure. But, if you "publish unique content under this pseudonym" there is no way to "arbitrarily or wholly revoke discussion about that content". If the cat gets out of the bag, while you may have remedies against the person who violated the non-disclosure agreement, you would not be able to prevent third-party discussion or reproduction.