Is this obvious gambling legal? https://www.omaze.com/products/tesla-model-y-kimbal-musk It basically is a lottery. Instead of buying lottery tickets, you &quot;donate&quot; and have a chance to win Tesla. Is it even legal in US? Is it okay to organize something like this in US if you market it outside US?
No First, gambling is not illegal - only illegal gambling is illegal. Lotteries are legal in the United States when operated by or under licence from a state (44) or territory (3). That's legal gambling. It's illegal when operated by somebody else. Clearly, Omaze isn't one of these; but they aren't running a lottery. They are running a sweepstakes. Not only is this legal, but it also isn't gambling because in a sweepstakes the players do not pay to play. If you look closely, you can see a link that says &quot;enter without contributing&quot;. Look even deeper and you can see &quot;NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT, OR CONTRIBUTION NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. Contributing will not improve chances of winning. Void where prohibited.&quot; No stake means no gamble.
There appears to also be bribery of local officials as well. Not to mention, He operates with impugnity out of "The North Pole" which is I believe a TRADEMARK of a certain (now aging) USA male porn actor. I'm SO guessing that Santa is gonna appear out of nowhere, when the arctic oil drilling rights are being carved out among the abutter nations...and he's going to sit his fat tuchie all over those rights. Yaw, biotches! SANTA be in da hous! EDIT: it's almost certain that if Santa delivered a "My Little Pony" doll to little Elise in Akron, Ohio, USA...he violated a bevvy of Bern convention laws around intellectual property. Come to think of it..."Santa" is somewhat of a MODEL for "China" when it comes to IP law...
I know the OP is asking about America, but its also worth knowing about other countries. This is legal if both subscriber and subscription are within the EU. There was also a court case about this. In another case in 2014 the pub lost, but that seems to have been because the decoder was only licensed for domestic use. These cases were for satellite decoders rather than Internet streaming, but the legal issues would be the same. Both these cases involved British pubs, so obviously this law doesn't apply to them since Brexit.
The use may constitute trademark infringement if it implies sponsorship or endorsement I'm going to assume US jurisdiction for this question, because you've not provided one, and you haven't provided enough car manufacturer names to suggest that this wouldn't apply to the US. I'll also only cover Federal law (the cases were tried in state courts), so be aware that there may be additional responsibilities under state law that I don't examine here. 15 U.S. Code § 1114: (1) Any person who shall, without the consent of the registrant— (a) use in commerce any reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive; or (b) reproduce, counterfeit, copy, or colorably imitate a registered mark and apply such reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation to labels, signs, prints, packages, wrappers, receptacles or advertisements intended to be used in commerce upon or in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive, shall be liable in a civil action by the registrant for the remedies hereinafter provided. Under subsection (b) hereof, the registrant shall not be entitled to recover profits or damages unless the acts have been committed with knowledge that such imitation is intended to be used to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive. 15 U.S. Code § 1125: (1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which— (A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or (B) in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial activities, shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act. These actions - the use of the trademarked manufacturer logo within the app - is likely to constitute trademark infringement, if the trademark owner's permission is not sought prior to publication, and the use of the trademark is likely to cause confusion as to the source, sponsorship or approval of the goods. What this means, is that if the trademarks are used in such a way that a reasonable person is likely to think that: The product is an official product from the owner/brand associated with the trademark; The product is sponsored by the owner/brand associated with the trademark; or The product is approved or endorsed by the owner/brand associated with the trademark. Then an action in trademark infringement may be brought by the trademark owner. Consider the following two cases: Polaroid Corp. v. Polarad Elect. Corp., 287 F.2d 492 (2d Cir. 1961) In this case, judgement was made for the defendant, as the defendant's field was not considered close enough to the plaintiff's for there to be a likely chance of confusion. AMF, Inc. v. Sleekcraft Boats, 599 F.2d 341 (9th Cir. 1979) In this case the trial judge decided that the trademarks Slickcraft and Sleekcraft were unlikely to cause confusion. This ruling was overturned on appeal and an injunction was ordered by the court. Possible defenses Nominative use of a mark When a mark is used solely to identify a product, this use is privileged. A descriptive mark used for its primary purpose Descriptive marks are a subtype of trademarks, which are descriptive in nature but have acquired a secondary meaning. Here, using a descriptive mark for its primary purpose has been found not to constitute infringement. General First Amendment protection Satire and parody are generally recognized as defenses if the primary purpose of the use is not directly commercial. If the products are not similar enough to be likely to cause confusion; and The use does not imply endorsement, sponsorship or approval of the product by the trademark owner then it should be fine. It seems that the situation in the question above would not give rise to confusion (unless the car manufacturer also develops an app, for instance), the second issue - endorsement - should be avoided. Many programs will have a legal section that includes ownership information and disclaims any association with the trademark owner(s). I have not been able to locate any cases where the effect of these sections have been tested. Further reading Overview of Trademark Law
This a bit dubious. You write &quot;I know you can make a digital copy of a book or CD you own.&quot; but that is true only under limited circumstances. Making such a copy for one's own personal use would likely be fair use (in the US). Selling copies would pretty clearly be copyright infringement. Giving away free copies to significant numbers of people would also be infringement. Temporarily lending copies ro a small number of people might be considered fair use or might not. For the board game, you could allow others to play with the copy you own in person. But COVID makes that unsafe. Assuming the game art is under copyright protection (some older games might have protection expired) selling such images or making them widely available would clearly be infringement. Making them available only during the course of play to a limited group, with technical measures to prevent or discourage copying and no fee charged might pass as fair use, and the game company might well not want to pursue the matter in any case. If you create new art which can be used for the same game, it would be somewhat less likely to be considered infringing/ Even then selling access would probably be trademark infringement, and perhaps infringe the copyright on the rules of the game. There would be legal risk in doing this sort of thing.
Free draws are outside the remit of the Gambling Act 2005 per this guidance from the Gambling Commission (section 4 from page 5 onwards). an arrangement is a lottery only if the participants are required to pay to enter. Therefore, free draws always have been and remain exempt from statutory control. Schedule 2 to the Act gives details of what is to be treated as amounting to ‘payment to enter’ for the purposes of distinguishing free draws from lotteries. Given that there is an alternative route (sending a letter by post) to entering the prize draw, it can be regarded as a &quot;free draw&quot; and is not considered gambling. To answer the other questions: Does that sound like a scheme for gig organisers to avoid having to refund / being held to account? Is it legal proof? No. It seems entirely pragmatic to be upfront that the gigs will not be going ahead until it's safe enough to withdraw social distancing guidelines. I don't know what you mean by &quot;legal proof&quot; here. If someone wins entry (having paid a &quot;donation&quot;) but the organisers never deem it safe for the gig to happen, will the donor be entitled to a refund? It seems unlikely that there is a contract here. You are not buying a ticket, merely the right to enter a draw which may reward you with a ticket. I suppose you could argue that a contract has been formed if you have the right to dispose of your right to enter the draw, but it seems worthless to me and I can't imagine that any valuable consideration has exchanged hands as a result. Still, it would be a matter for a court to decide on the facts at the end of the day.
No It's a trade secret owned by FICO, formerly Fair, Isaac and Company (1956-2003) and Fair Isaac Corporation (2003-2009). As a trade secret, it is protected and breaches of the secrecy carry criminal and civil punishments. Btw: Releasing the formula would invalidate all scores based on it, as it would open doors to manipulate the own score.
I only address the core legal question. The first question regards where the review appeared: on the facility's own web page, or on some third party web page? In the latter case, there is the possibility that soliciting a modified review in exchange for something of value violates the terms of usage for that web site. There are also US federal regulations pertaining to advertising, as well as state regulations. The federal regulations are here. The main question is whether what you say constitutes an endorsement, as specified here. They define an endorsement as: any advertising message (including verbal statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name or seal of an organization) that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser, even if the views expressed by that party are identical to those of the sponsoring advertiser. The regulation in fact gives some helpful examples (reading them helps to clarify what an "endorsement" is), the last of which involves a dog: Example 8: A consumer who regularly purchases a particular brand of dog food decides one day to purchase a new, more expensive brand made by the same manufacturer. She writes in her personal blog that the change in diet has made her dog's fur noticeably softer and shinier, and that in her opinion, the new food definitely is worth the extra money. This posting would not be deemed an endorsement under the Guides. Assume now that the consumer joins a network marketing program under which she periodically receives various products about which she can write reviews if she wants to do so. If she receives a free bag of the new dog food through this program, her positive review would be considered an endorsement under the Guides. The distinction at issue is whether the suggestion of receiving something of value might influence a person's statements. You can pay for a positive review, as a reward for saying nice things, as long as the reviewer had no reason to think that they would get get something in return for a review. Taking your review to be an endorsement, as required here, Endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser. The regulation does not require you to reveal every thing that came into your mind in writing the review, but it is pretty clear that suppressing the concern about vaccination paperwork and the star count constitutes a dishonest statement of opinion of the endorser. Material connections must also be revealed: When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed. For example, when an endorser who appears in a television commercial is neither represented in the advertisement as an expert nor is known to a significant portion of the viewing public, then the advertiser should clearly and conspicuously disclose either the payment or promise of compensation prior to and in exchange for the endorsement or the fact that the endorser knew or had reason to know or to believe that if the endorsement favored the advertised product some benefit, such as an appearance on television, would be extended to the endorser In the 7th example under material disclosure, they describe a blogger who received something of value in connection with a review: the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge I should point out that these regulations are written by the FTC, and the implied interpretation (such as that the blogger should disclose... with no clearly stated penalty for failure to disclose) is an FTC interpretation. 15 USC 52 prohibits false advertisements for services affecting commerce. This is the jurisdictional aspect of their complaint against Cure Encapsulations, where defendants paid for reviews on a third-party website (this case involves a relationship between defendant and a fourth-party company that apparently hunts for and pays reviewers). This is apparently the first instance in which the FTC has gone against a business for paying for reviews on a third party web site, so it's not a foregone conclusion that they will prevail in court. Still, Chevron deference means that they will probably win at least on the jurisdictional question. The main difference is that in the Cure Encapsulation case, the violation was even more egregious in that the individuals were not even customers, and in this instance the would-(not)-be review was not the honest opinion of the endorser.