A Book Review: Paul Lomic, Social Media and Internet Law: Forms and Precedents

AuthorJohn Gregory
DateJanuary 12, 2015

What is it about social media that make them such a hot topic these days, even for lawyers, as this new book demonstrates? I suggest it’s all the people. Other areas of technology can be dry or technical or mystifying, other areas of law can be the realm of big corporations or telecoms or governments. Social media combine cutting-edge technology with real human beings just doing what we do – spouting ideas, going places, making pictures, telling stories. The topic is more about us than most of the others in law or technology.

Social media do not have all their own law, however. The usual laws that apply to people doing anything apply to them online and on social media. Social media law sits on top of Internet law, since all social media rely on the Internet to work, and Internet law in turn branches into commercial, IP, privacy, labour and other fields.

Paul Lomic, a civil litigator, has assembled an experienced group of Toronto practitioners to tell us about the law of social media and to show lawyers how to practise it, with forms and precedents. The result is a pretty useful introductory guide that should help orient those who have not thought much about it, and refresh the perspective of those who have. The style is accessible, the law is accurate (though of course in this field more than most, subject to change) and the precedents a good cross-section of what one is likely to need. Besides their printed versions, the precedents come on a CD to make them easier to use.

One of the principal uses people make of social media is to communicate with the world – starting with family, friends and co-workers. It is not surprising that much of the focus of the book is on the impact of these self-directed communications. Three early chapters deal with employment issues, including why and how employers should establish social media policies and how both employers and employees can get into trouble without them. Such policies come up again in the chapter on defamation and in the chapter on intellectual property. Clearly social media make it harder than it used to be to get employees to control their speech.

Another chapter deals with social media and marketing, with special attention to games and contests on different platforms. The privacy chapter provides a very thorough and expert discussion of several aspects of the field, though it does not particularly set out the impact of privacy rules on social media users apart from anyone else. It includes a review of...

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