Free for a Fee

Really interesting use of copyright law (instead of defamation or privacy law) here. [Ed]

by Wendy Davis, 4 hours ago

Media Post: The Daily Online Examiner

In the five years since he co-founded RateMDs.com, a site where patients rate their doctors, John Swapceinski has been threatened with lawsuits at least once a week. Not one disgruntled physician has actually carried out his threats, Swapceinski tells MediaPost. Indeed, it would be very difficult to sue the site for defamation, given that the federal Communications Decency Act immunizes Web sites from libel cases based on user comments. But, starting six months ago, the nature of the threats changed. That’s when Swapceinski began hearing from doctors who said that reviews on the site violated contracts with their patients. Apparently, some physicians are now asking patients to sign agreements in which they promise they won’t review their doctors online. In some versions of the contracts, called “Mutual Agreement to Maintain Privacy,” doctors promise to prevent patients from “unwanted marketing information” — anonymous targeting by marketers — in exchange for patients’ promise to avoid posting negative reviews to Web sites. And, critically, the contracts also assign the copyright in anything the patients write about their doctors to those doctors.

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