Chey’s News Desk – Important social media updates including Facebook Ad Conversion Measurement roll out, Facebook Graph Search, Twitter introducing Vine, My Space, ROXY developments and Airline KLM’s social media Map Tool.

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• Interview with Jamie White of Pod legal – about all things social media and the law, including copyright and trademarks.
  

CRAIG:    And, welcome to Social Media on the Pulse at 94.7.  My name is Craig McCarthy, and this is the show where we talk everything tech’, on-line marketing, and social media.

CHEY:     And you forgot me!

CRAIG:    And also in the studio with me is my co-host, Cheyanne Ainsworth.  Hi Chey.

CHEY:     I am a host here too, and …

CRAIG:    You’re the host, yes.

CHEY:     Yes.  No, but we are both hosts.

CRAIG:    Both hosts, yes.

CHEY:     And, yes.  Social Media Pulse is all about on-line marketing, like you just said.  Today, we have got a pretty packed hour really.

CRAIG:    Absolutely.  We have got a lot to get in.

CHEY:     We do.

CRAIG:    It is exciting.  And a big thanks to Sue and Belinda for the last two hours.  Those girls are great.

CHEY:     Yes, thanks Sue and Belinda.

CRAIG:    Yes.  And we have had some technical issues in the (laughs) in the studio here today, so that is a bit of fun as well.

CHEY:     Always challenging.  But today’s show, we are talking legal.  Social media and legal risks.  So that is going to be interesting.  We have got the guys in here from Pod Legal, and Jamie is going to have a chat with us.  We have got a heap of questions.  I have got the News Desk, which is pretty packed.  And …

CRAIG:    I have got Resources at the end.  A new section – we have dropped tit bits because apparently it is not the right word to use.  We have got lots of YouTube music on the show.

CHEY:     None of my choices.   I will make that clear today.  None of my choices today.

CRAIG:    Or mine.  Yes.   And I have been pretty good today.

CHEY:     Yes?

CRAIG:    Yes.

CHEY:     OK.  I will …

CRAIG:    I think everything’s over the hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, so it is pretty popular stuff.  I think there is one I slipped in there that was just for my …

CHEY:     Your tastes?

CRAIG:    My tastes, yes.

CHEY:     I will see if I can pick it.

CRAIG:    Yes (laughs).  I think you will.

CHEY:     Look, you always play good stuff, so I am chipping everything you play is going to be fine.

CRAIG:    Thank you, Chey.

CHEY:     You are welcome.

CRAIG:    You don’t mean that!

CHEY:     Yes, I do.  No, I don’t have an issue (laughs).

CRAIG:    What a week in Geelong.  It is all happening here at the moment.

CHEY:     It is.  Absolutely.

CRAIG:    Got the Festival of Sales this weekend, which is exciting, and all sorts of Australia Day …

CHEY:     Activities …

CRAIG:    Activities tomorrow, because tomorrow here in Australia is Australia Day, which is exciting.  And, I am going to do a bit of plug actually.  Would it be good here?  Australian International Air Show tickets for all subscribers to the Pulse.

CHEY:     They all go in the Draw, I think.  We don’t have tickets for every single one of them.

CRAIG:    That is correct.  That is lucky you said that.  Yes, so there is a prize draw.  So all subscribers will go into the draw.  So if you are not yet a subscriber, subscribe now for your chance to win.

CHEY:     Get on board.  It is not expensive.

CRAIG:    It is not expensive.  It is very cheap.  Support your local community radio station.

CHEY:     Yes.  And when is the Air Show?  First to third of March.

CRAIG:    First to third of March, yes.

CHEY:     Always fantastic.

CRAIG:    There is so much going on here.

CHEY:     Ok.   Well, what are we going to … are we going to go to the News Desk, or do you want to do a song first?

CRAIG:    Let’s do a song first.  Get things moving and then we will come back and we will find out what’s happening in social media news.

CHEY:     Fantastic.

[THEME TUNE MUSIC and pause]

CRAIG:    Well …

CHEY:     Wow.  That went quicker than I thought (Craig laughs).  Here we are chatting away!

CRAIG:    Chatting away.  Of course, we are fully organized and we were ready for that.

CHEY:     Well, it is Organisation Month, isn’t it!  We were talking about that (laughs).

CRAIG:    That is right.  That was Beyonce’s.  We all note 210 million hits on YouTube at the moment.

CHEY:     Yes.

CRAIG:    Fair effort!

CHEY:     She was in the news this week!

CRAIG:    Was she?  What for?

CHEY:     She sang at the … Obama’s Inauguration … When was it?  3 days ago?  4 days ago?  And we still haven’t found out whether she …

CRAIG:    Lip-sync’d it  or not.

CHEY:     Yes.  I was going to say mimed it.  I didn’t think that was the right words to use though.

CRAIG:    Ok.

CHEY:     Yes, so I did read that, and I thought that’s a bit unusual.  When I listed to it, it sounded real but you just never know.  The technology is so good these days.

CRAIG:    Yes.  Oh, well.  Whatever.

CHEY:     Right.  You want the News Desk?

CRAIG:    Yes.  Bring it on.

CHEY:     OK.  Big week in Social Media.  Facebook rolled out the Ad Conversion Measurement globally.  So, if you have any Facebook advertisements, go into your Ads Manager.  On the left-hand side, there will be another little tab that says “Conversion Trackingâ€.  So this is making it easier for people to track and measure all sorts of conversions within Facebook.  Go and have a look at it.  I am tipping you love your resources, so I am …

CRAIG:    Yes.

CHEY:     Would you like to do a section on this, like in the next couple of weeks?

CRAIG:    Well, thanks for asking because I will do that!  Yes.

CHEY:     Awesome.  Cool.

CRAIG:    That would be great.  Love it.

CHEY:     Now, have you got Graph Search?

CRAIG:    No …

CHEY:     On Facebook?  I got it yesterday.  And I was typing in some interesting things, but I’m thinking that in the next week or two there is going to be some pretty good case studies with Graph Search.  And I might do a section on that in the next couple of weeks.

CRAIG:    Right.  What is it?

CHEY:     Graph Search is where you can actually type into Facebook friends … my friends that like Pulse!  So, then I can see all of my friends that like Pulse.  My friends that have eaten at restaurants in Geelong and it will show the restaurants.  So it is really important for local businesses to make sure their pages are updated with their right addresses, images, locations, those sorts of things because, depending on your friends that have, you know, been to different restaurants in the area, they will be at the top of the list or down at the bottom of the list.  So pretty important.  OK.  Twitter today introduced Vine.  Now Vine was purchased by Twitter in October last year.  I don’t know what price they paid for it.  It is a Video Tweeting Service.  And it is 6 seconds long.  It has voice and video, obviously.  A bit like SnapChat it seems.

CRAIG:    Right.

CHEY:     But for Twitter.  So, again, next week I will do an analysis and see what we think of that.  MySpace is open to everyone.  It is out of ‘invitation only’ mode, so you can go into MySpace and join it if you would like.  Rocksy this week .. Rocksy being a division of QuickSilver.  Now, they last year did a Facebook campaign, or an on-line campaign I should say, calling … it was called ‘Let the Sea set you Free’, and they had 5,000 entries.  83 different countries.  They had 1.9 million visits to their website, and they had 730,000 consumer votes on the videos that were actually submitted.  They have just opened in the last 5 hours another campaign called ‘Dare Yourself’, and it is a campaign to inspire women to dream big.  So, they have 2.6 million Facebook fans.  It is going to be interesting to follow this campaign and see how well and what they replicate from the last one.  What they do differently.  So that will be good.  Now airlines.  KLM (Dutch airline).  They do social media.  I give them 10 stars.  Like, they really do understand their consumer base.  They understand social media.  And they are constantly coming up with great content and quality sort of stuff.  They have introduced only in the last, I think it was the last 2 days, a service called Must See Maps.KLM.com.  Now, you go on there.  You plan your itinerary.  And you put in different locations and where you are going to go and what you are going to do.  Then you can open it up to social media and have input from everybody within your social media platforms.  So, from Facebook, Twitter, or email, everybody, like I could be going to L.A. and I could be saying I want to go and see Doctor Phil!  So, I am tipping that Craig might be able to tell me how I can meet Doctor Phil!  And you can put on the map … you can put on different things on my map that I must do, or must see, and then (you know what), KLM will let you print it out!

CRAIG:    That is fantastic.

CHEY:     Yes.

CRAIG:    The wise crack about Doctor Phil.  I am not so sure if that’s so fantastic. (Chey laughs), so I will remember that.  Thank you!

CHEY:     I am glad you got a giggle out of it.  And the only other thing I have left on the News Desk is that Yahoo has bought Snip.IT, which is Snippit, for 10 Million.  Very much like Pinterest.  Again, we are seeing a theme.  Lots of photos.  Lots of photoboards.  That sort of stuff.

CRAIG:    Yes.

CHEY:     That is the News Desk.

CRAIG:    That is fantastic.  Did you think when you were younger that you would be on the radio doing news and weather?  Because you are our weather girl here on this … and on this show as well.  So ..

CHEY:     Yes.  So, I don’t …

CRAIG:    So is it like your dream’s coming true?

CHEY:     Well.  I suppose it is, really.  I don’t sort of dream too big.  Maybe I should enter the Rocksy competition.

CRAIG:    There you go (both laugh).

CRAIG:    All right.  Thanks, Chey.  That was a fantastic News Desk today, and coming up after the break live in the studio …

CHEY:     We have our Social Media lawyers.  So if you have any questions, head over to our Facebook page, Tweet us.  Let us know if you have any social media concerns, legal-wise.  We have a heap of questions in here, haven’t we!

CRAIG:    Absolutely, yes.  It is going to be great.

CHEY:     It is a hot topic.  So, we are going to be speaking with Jamie White from Pod Legal after the break.

[THEME TUNE MUSIC break]

CRAIG:    Rhiannon.  Rhianna?  Rhiannon?

CHEY:     I don’t know.  I don’t have any of her albums.  I don’t have any of her songs in iTunes at all.

CRAIG:    Really?

CHEY:     No.

CRAIG:    290 million hits on YouTube for that song.

CHEY:     Wow.  What song was it again?

CRAIG:    ‘What’s my name’ … do you want me to sing it?

CHEY:     Add singing to your repertoire of abilities!

CRAIG:    Let’s move on!

CHEY:     Yes.  Now in the studio, we are very very lucky to have with us Jamie White.  Now, Jamie is a lawyer at Pod Legal, and Pod Legal are an innovative commercial law firm.  Their expertise is in various practice areas, but they include Intellectual Property Law, Technology Law, Franchising Law, Privacy Laws and Advertising and Marketing Law, and Social Media (obviously) in the mix there.  Now, Jamie, welcome to the show [canned applause]

JAMIE:    It is great to be here.  Thank you!

CHEY:     That’s a bit special!

CRAIG:    You like that?  Welcome Jamie.  Thanks for coming in.

JAMIE:    Thanks Craig.  Great to be here.

(Chey laughs)

CHEY:     You caught me off guard there! Where’s this clapping coming from!

CRAIG:    Yes, I am pretty good.

CHEY:     Yes you are.

CRAIG:    Jamie.  Now, you have known Chey for a while.  You have been working together, I believe, for a couple of years.  Something like that.  But, I haven’t heard of you before.  So, do you want tell us a little bit about your story?  And Pod Legal’s story?

JAMIE:    Sure.  Thank you.  I guess my personal story. I grew up playing competitive tennis, and from a very young age, and (of course) went through High School like many do.  And then embarked on a professional tennis career for about ten years where I would play and toured in many different places, and then after 10 years I woke up and thought I better get serious.  So I went to University on the Gold Coast.  Bond University, and studied law and did some post-graduate study.  Worked at a couple of the bigger firms.  Thought I could do it better myself.  As many lawyers think they can.  So, enter Pod Legal!  I now teach law at Bond University in our specialist subjects.  Around electronic commerce and the law.  Still play competitive tennis, and while doing all that I have managed to fit in a marriage to Karen, the Pod Legal Business Director (laughs).

CHEY:     A very lucky man, you are!

JAMIE:    Thank you.  Yes, I am.

CRAIG:    So how old is Pod Legal?

JAMIE:    Pod Legal has … it is in its third year now.  It came about as a consequence of a rebrand of a previous firm that I owned.  So, yes, very young but certainly making an impact in the legal market.

CRAIG:    That is great.  And so what is your niche?  What do you specialize in?

JAMIE:    We actually specialize in Intellectual Property, Technology Law, Social Media Law.  So, anything with technology in it, where there …

CHEY:     And you are also wrote curriculum as well.

JAMIE:    Yes.  That is for Bond University.  Electronic commerce and the Law.  And in that subject, which is taught at undergraduate and post graduate level, we cover many different aspects of electronic commerce.  So everything from social media to intellectual property to misleading and deceptive conduct to privacy laws.

CHEY:     Yes.  That is specialized, but it is still very broad, isn’t it?

JAMIE:    It is still broad.  The thing that a lot of people don’t yet realize is that there are a wide range of laws.  Existing laws that do apply to the on-line environment, and no doubt we will talk more about that today.

CHEY:     Yes.  Absolutely.  We have got a ton of questions.

JAMIE:    Yes, right.  You go first Chey.

CHEY:     Now, I was going to ask about privacy, on-line copyright of photos.  Those sorts of things.

JAMIE:    Yes, broad …

CHEY:     Really broad …

JAMIE:    Yes, broad subject, but let me give it a go.  So, I guess when we are talking about, or considering, privacy and privacy laws in the on-line environment, I guess we start by saying that people don’t have a right to privacy in Australia.  However, in the Privacy Act, there are some principles that we all need to follow as business owners.  And they relate to the collection of personal information, so when you do click the information about a person, you need to disclose under what circumstances you might disclose it to a third party.  How you are going to use that information.  How you are going to store it.  And they have a right to access it, so privacy law is a big issue on-line.  We see it a lot in the media.  But, alongside pricacy law, is spamming laws.  And, despite what many people might think, there are spamming laws in Australia.  McDonalds are aware of this, because they were pulled across the coals by the ACCC just weeks ago.

CHEY:     Yes.

CRAIG:    Really?  What for?

JAMIE:    That was for their Friend Get Friend marketing strategy.  So where they email their database, and say please forward this on.  But, of course, the people that are the end recipient.  They are not consenting to that electronic message to be sent to them.  So, yes, breach of the Spam Act.

CHEY:     Do you know if they were fined?

JAMIE:    They weren’t, unusually.  They were actually given a fairly severe warning, so I think if that sort of conduct continues, they can expect substantial fines.  There was a fine, however, handed out in the last week or two, and that was Bet Easy, and that was having no unsubscribe facility in their emails and SMS commercial messages.  So, one of the things we must do, or 3 things we must do to comply with the Spam Act.  1: Get recipient consent; 2: Have an unsubscribe facility in your email or SMS; and 3: you must identify yourself as being the sender of that message.

CHEY:     Yes.

CRAIG:    In what … what do you mean by that … in what way?  In the subject line?  Or …

JAMIE:    In terms of identifying yourself?  Usually, that might take place in the footer of the email (‘this email was sent to you by …

CHEY:     such and such a company with an address or a post office box and a site number …

JAMIE:    Absolutely.  And that satisfies that identification element.

CHEY:     So you are sending it from a real place or person …

JAMIE:    And that is right.  And one of the reasons is so that people can contact you and determine whether or not they did subscribe or provide the required consent.

CHEY:     Yes.  There you go.  Copyright.  That is a big … a big chunk.

JAMIE:    That is a huge issue right now.  Copyright Laws are under reform in Australia.  Try and address some of these emerging issues as a result of emerging technologies.  However, something we are often asked about is how do we know when we can use someone else’s content.  Whether it be a photo, or text, or whatever.  And bottom line is you need permission. If you don’t own it, you need permission.  Ok, and there is a myth out there that if you attribute ownership to an author, that satisfies … you won’t be caught out for copyright infringement.  That is not the case.  Attribution is a separate right.  It is a moral right.  Infringement, if you are going to, or with copyright, if you are going to substantially reproduce a work, you need permission to do that.

CHEY:     So, as an example.  Just say I find an article on Social Media Examiner that I really really like.  And I take a chunk of it and I write my own article.  Put their part in it, but also put underneath it ‘this information came from social media such-and-such an author at Social Media Examiner’, do I need to get their permission to just that little part in it?  Or do I need absolute authority from them to be able to use it?

JAMIE:    I guess in the absence of anything in their terms of service allowing you, or granting you a licence to reproduce that work, you would need to make sure that you are permitted to do that.  So you would need to seek consent, particularly if it is in relation to a substantial part of that work.  Now, another myth is that if you change it 10%, that will be enough.  That is a myth, as I say.   The test is a substantial part, and that goes to quality rather than quantity.  So, my best recommendation might be to always contact the owner of the copyright work.

CHEY:     Before you publish your work.  Not after the fact.

JAMIE:    Absolutely.  And I might take the opportunity to point out that ignorance is not a defence in the law.

CHEY:     Yes.

JAMIE:    You can’t act blind.

CHEY:     No.  Not any more.  Ok.

CRAIG:    That is fantastic, Jamie.  Do you want to stick around?  We have got lots more questions.  We are going to take a quick break.

JAMIE:    I would love to.

CRAIG:    Great.

[THEME TUNE MUSIC break]

CRAIG:    How did you like that, Chey?

CHEY:     Was that your pick, was it?

CRAIG:    Maybe it was!  We will see (Chey laughs)

[Music clip]

(Chey and Craig laugh)

CHEY:     That was dramatic of you!

CRAIG:    I meant that, of course.

CHEY:     Sure.

CRAIG:    I put a quick promo for the station.  GO Festival tickets.  GO Festival is on on 16^th and 17^th of February Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton.

CHEY:     Yes.

CRAIG:    GO stands for Girls Only, so this will be a festival I am not allowed in.

CHEY:     I will ask Susan, because we are interviewing Susan next week on the show.

CRAIG:    Great.  Excellent.

CHEY:     But, I will ask her, if you wear a skirt and shave your legs, if she will let you in.  Would you go?

CRAIG:    Yes.

CHEY:     Is that a dare?  Maybe we should put that on the Rocksy site.

CRAIG:    Yes, bring it on!  That is all right.  So, available to every subscriber, who subscribes to the Pulse – 94.7 – so come on down, or go on the website (www.947thepulse.com) and become a subscriber.  Support your local radio station, and you will get GO Festival tickets.

CHEY:     There you go.

CRAIG:    If you are a girl!

CHEY:     Yes.  Or maybe we will see if Susan will bend the rules for skirts on men!

CRAIG:    Yes, the ultimate girls’ day out.  Sounds good.

CHEY:     Sounds good.  There is going to be pampering.  There is going to be all sorts of things.

CRAIG:    Ok.  Let’s keep moving.  We have Jamie White in the studio with us still from Pod Legal.

CHEY:     Thanks for staying with us, Jamie.

CRAIG:    Absolutely.  I have got a question, a Facebook question.  Now, I understand that you can work with businesses as a middle man between them and Facebook if there is some issues with their Facebook pages.  So, how easy is it to get damaging material removed from Facebook?

JAMIE:    That is a great question.  Well, it depends on the type of material you are trying to get removed from the Facebook page and also the reasons for that.  With respect to removing material that might be infringeing upon someone else’s intellectual property rights, it is a fairly straightforward process.  Not a simple process, but one that you can expect to achieve success in.  That is through the prescribed Facebook channel for that.  For that process, you just need to lodge an Intellectual Property Infringement Notice.  Facebook will automatically take down the infringing material.  We should note that repeat infringers risk having their Facebook account terminated, and this is what has happened to the Cool Hunter, unfortunately for them.

CRAIG:    What happened to them?

CHEY:     It was a pretty big case.

JAMIE:    It was.  It got a lot of attention, and rightly so.  That related to copyright infringement, but the Cool had a page had some 788,000 fans.  The likes were growing between 1,500 and 2,500 per day.  10,000 clicks through to the Cool Hunter website each day.  And the content was built up over 5 years, and Mr Cool Hunter woke up one day to find his Facebook page was no longer there.  He made some enquiries and found out that it was due to copyright infringement.  So, again, we go back to always having to have permission to reproduce content.  So, very …

CHEY:     And are they getting stricter and stricter?

JAMIE:    Absolutely.  As pressure amounts to act upon these infringements.  Absolutely.  So, it is very important to all our listeners to understand copyright laws as they apply on-line and to their businesses.

CHEY:     Absolutely.  Have you got anything further to ask, Craig?

CRAIG:    No.

CHEY:     Sorry, you looked like you were about to say something?

CRAIG:    No, I wasn’t.

CHEY:     No?

CRAIG:    Have you got a question?

CHEY:     Yes.  Absolutely.  I would like to know … there are a myriad of pre-made social media policies for companies on-line at the moment.  Is it a good idea for these businesses to be using the pre-made ones?  Is it better than not having one at all?  Or should they all be customized?

JAMIE:    Another good question, and we get asked fairly often.  And my response is like all legal documents.  No one size fits all.  When people ask for a standard document, I often do you have a standard business?  And that usually sets them back, and gets them thinking.  But, look, the most important thing is that these social media policies, like any document or policy, must reflect the Company’s view on the use of social media in the workplace.  It is no use having a policy saying one thing, and your views being different.  And these policies are relied upon when possibly disciplining an employee, or even worse, terminating their employment.  So it is important that the policies are prepared specifically for you.  Whether or not it is a good idea for a … are you better off having one that is templated.  Is that better than not having one at all.  I would think not.  Once again, you really do need that specifically prepared document.  And I think it is important to point out here, we are not talking about thousands of dollars, we are talking about hundreds.  So it is not a major expense for a business.  For what is a very, very important document.

CHEY:     Especially to protect yourself and your business with what employees can and cannot do.

JAMIE:    Absolutely.  And I think we need to think from a brand management point of view as well.  In order to make sure that the brand is being protected and not damaged through unauthorized voice.

CHEY:     Craig and I were talking about Just chains and Arcacia and those sorts of incidences that have happened, you know, in the last month basically.  And we sort of always wonder what type of policies they have behind to protect themselves as a brand.

JAMIE:    Quite often, you might find that there is no policy in place, and unfortunately it often takes a crisis like this to prompt the implementation of a policy.

CHEY:     It brings to the forefront as well how the bigger brands haven’t taken social media as seriously as they should have.

JAMIE:    Absolutely.

CHEY:     From a legal perspective.

JAMIE:    Absolutely.  Very important.  We spend a lot of time educating clients around this.  We also work with a lot of Government departments in not only preparing these policies, but also training key staff to the policies.

CHEY:     I would like to ask about HR.  I know that overseas, especially in the US, they have actually been asking … certain companies have been asking for log-ins to personal social media platforms before hiring people.  And it has sort of being going on for a good 12 months.  What are the Australian rules regarding these sorts of things?  And is there any cases or examples that you can use for best practice for employees?

JAMIE:    Again, a very interesting question, and a very topical one at the moment.  You are right.  In the US, there have been 6 different states towards the end of last year which passed legisl … or implemented legislation which prohibits an employer requesting or requiring an employee to pass on those details to social media accounts.  There is no such legislation in Australia as yet.  Whether or not we can expect that in the future, I am not sure, but certainly we can expect one or two cases to pop up and provide some pretty strong guidance on this issue, so what this space.

CHEY:     Would that go under Privacy laws?

JAMIE:    Certainly.  It is a matter of reconciling privacy and the interests of an employer.  So, yes, it would fall under employment laws, privacy laws, absolutely.

CHEY:     Fantastic.

CRAIG:    I remember hearing the news a little while ago that they changed the laws around making businesses liable for the material that was posted on their social media pages.  So, what has happened with that?  What is the expectation that businesses have to manage what other people put on their pages?

JAMIE:    Yes, look.  Just to provide a short amount of background on that.  There was a case some 18 months ago now.  It was called the Allergy Pathway Case, and that case was about false testimonials posted, or displayed on a website.  It also Facebook page.  And the Court in that case said that you are liable for that content, albeit it in the on-line environment there, and via a social media page, like Facebook.  In that case, as I said, it was false testimonials.  The owner of the website and Facebook page knew they were false but failed to pull it down.  So, big lesson to be learned there.  More recently, late last year the Advertising Standards Board actually …

CHEY:     Stepped in …

JAMIE:    Stepped in. Had their say, and the effect of that was that it had established that advertisers and marketers will be liable for the content on their Facebook and social media pages, including content uploaded by third parties.  So, very, very important.  And a lot of people were up and down, saying how long have we got to act.  We are a big business.  We cannot monitor it every day.  And the ACCC came in and provided some guidance, and they said that big businesses have 24 hours to act.  They didn’t say what a big business is. They didn’t say how long a small business has to act.  Again, my recommendation would be you monitor, monitor, monitor and act swiftly.  Absolutely.

CRAIG:    So that means that some big businesses will need to employ people over the weekend just to monitor their social media.

JAMIE:    Yes. Absolutely, and I think this is where the social media agencies are really benefitting potentially, that they do do that after hours monitoring.  But also from a … the benefit of that is also from a brand management point of view.  48 hours over the weekend is a long time for people to absolutely slag off about your brand.  Ok, so you really want to be on top of that.  There are issues here that are non-legal, but very, very important in terms of maintaining the brand reputation.

CHEY:     Absolutely.

CRAIG:    That is great.  We must take another quick break, and will you stick around, Jamie, for a bit longer?

JAMIE:    I will give you a little more.

CRAIG:    Ok.  Good stuff.

CHEY:     Thank you.

[THEME TUNE MUSIC break]

CHEY:     Well, there are quite a few sponsors here, isn’t there!

CRAIG:    You like that?

CHEY:     And I would like to just give a big shout-out to the Sounds From The Pulse 2002, sorry …. 2002.  2013 CD.  It is available to every subscriber, so once you are subscribed to 94.7 The Pulse, you get, not only tickets to the GO Festival, but you also go into the draw for the Air Show and you get the CD as well.  It features Chris Wilson, Carl Taylor, Issi Lozzi and few others there.  So, get along and subscribe.

[Canned applause]

CHEY:     You are getting pretty talented with those buttons, aren’t you?

CRAIG:    Just getting a bit carried away, yes.  Cleans through that promo-show. That is fantastic.

CHEY:     You are welcome.  I can do the News Desk.  I can do the weather.

CRAIG:    Look at you!

CHEY:     Yes.  Now, we have still got Jamie here, and I have got a couple of questions I want to finish up with if that is ok.

JAMIE:    Yes.

CHEY:     Jamie.  Tell me this.  There IS … there you go.  Of course, I am not organized, and I don’t have my questions here.

JAMIE:    Ok.

CHEY:     Basically, I wanted to know what your differentiation was between a legal team.  You know, there is family law, there is all different types of legal people we can see.  What differentiations do you have at Pod Legal.

JAMIE:    I guess, in terms of our specialist areas of law?

CHEY:     Yes.

JAMIE:    Firstly, I will start by saying that there is a lot that we don’t know much about.  A lot of areas of law that we don’t engage in or offer services with respect to, but what we do do is intellectual property (so trademarks, copyrights).  We protect peoples intellectual property.  We also enforce it against others that are misusing it.  Also, technology laws, so anything to do with iPhone apps, websites, on-line environment.

CHEY:     To main name disputes?

JAMIE:    To main name disputes.  That is a big part of what we do.  Absolutely.  And, of course, social media laws, so again that is … there are many laws that come into play when talking about social media and the law.  But, yes, certainly that is one of the emerging areas of our practice.

CHEY:     Yes, ok.  Now, can you tell me is there something uncommon – I know that there is a lot of common things that happen – but is there are any case studies or anything uncommon that have been challenging to you?

JAMIE:    The first thing that comes to mind was a case that was very different to anything that we had done, or handled, and that was a trademark case.  It was the Nucken Futs (a trademark case).  Anyway, we filed a Trademark Application on behalf of a client with respect to packaged nuts that you might buy from a pub.  Anyway, As we expected, the Trademarks Examiner rejected that Trademark Application as they are required to do so if a trademark contains scandalous matter.  And, …

CHEY:     Scandalous nuts!

(laughter)

JAMIE:    And, so in response to that, we argued that Nucken Futs not scandalous in any way.  The fact that the F-word may not take on the meaning that it once did, and it is used a little more widely in 2012 was successful in that submission and consequently …

CHEY:     the media went nuts.

JAMIE:    The media all round the world went nuts …

CHEY:     Yeah, gullible.

JAMIE:    We were very busy answering lots of questions about it, and it is certainly a case that our client was happy to win.  And it certainly shaped the law in Australia somewhat with respect to what may or may not be a scandalous trademark.  And marketing these days, to cut through all that noise out there, they are looking at pushing their parameters and being edgy and border-line scandalous.  So, we are going to see more and more of this type of thing in the future.

CHEY:     Is it true though – I do understand a bit of that sort of law – but there is a timeframe of which people can say we don’t like it.

JAMIE:    They can oppose, yes absolutely.

CHEY:     That is the word I am looking for.  They can oppose it.

JAMIE:    Absolutely.  So, after the Trademark Examiner accepts a trademark for registration, that then goes into a 3-month opposition period.  And in that 3-month period, any interested third party can officially oppose to registration of that trademark.  So, interestingly in the Nucken Futs case, there was 3 months for people to oppose and, despite all the jumping up and down and the hoohar, and the global media attention, still no one cared to oppose.

CHEY:     Not another nut company like Nobbys or any of those opposed it.

JAMIE:    No one at all.

CHEY:     That is incredible.

CRAIG:    Yes, so stay tuned.  We can expect to see these on the shelves shortly.

CHEY:     There you go.

CRAIG:    That is a great story.

CHEY:     Fantastic.

CRAIG:    So, I have got a quick question.  Pod Legal.  What is your point of difference?

JAMIE:    What is our point of difference?  Well, I guess we have got several.  The first one is the fact that we do fixed fee billings.  So, this means that we attach a fee for service.  It is up front.  Clients love it, because it offers certainty of cost.  And also ensures complete transparency at all times, so that is probably our first and foremost point of difference.  Secondly, we have an attitude where we share information and knowledge. We don’t hold it close to our chest and only part with it when we are paid for that.  We believe that we need to empower small business and medium-sized business owners with knowledge so that they can make informed decisions.  And lastly, we have what we call the Pod Experience.  And that is a term that we passionately use …

CHEY:     Have you trademarked it?

JAMIE:    That is a really good question (laughter) .. and if someone else wants to refer to the way they treat their clients as a pod experience in law, that is probably unlikely.  But it is all about the relationships and being accessible at all times for our clients.

CHEY:     Ok.  Well, Jamie, thank you so much for being on the show.  I think we will have you back again many a time.

CRAIG:    Yes, if we can.  How do people get in contact with you, Jamie?

JAMIE:    Well, they can get in contact with us through our website (podlegal.com.au).  Of course, we have a social media presence, so Facebook ([inaudible]podlegal) and also via Twitter, but I urge people to go and access the resources.  Free resources through our website.

CHEY:     And the other thing I was going to say is we have got a ticket to give away to your event.  We are going to pop it up on the Facebook page and we will put some details up there in the next 24 hours, and people can have a look at the Facebook page and pick up one of your tickets to your events.

JAMIE:    Wonderful.   Thank you.

CRAIG:    Fantastic.  All right.  Thanks, Jamie.

JAMIE:    Thank you very much.

CHEY:     See you next week, Craig.

CRAIG:    Bye!

[THEME TUNE MUSIC break]

[End of transcript 35:31]

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