E-Commerce Law Briefs: Week of May 7, 2007

There were two significant MySpace news items this week. First, it was reported that MySpace has agreed to acquire Photobucket, the leading online photo-sharing service. It’s said to be a $250 million deal.

Readers may recall that last month, MySpace and Photobucket were engaged in a fairly public battle in which MySpace blocked images and videos hosted by Photobucket, alleging that Photobucket had violated the MySpace terms of use by encouraging users to include advertisements in the slide shows they posted to MySpace. The battle ended with both sides agreeing to strengthen lines of communication and commentators suggesting that MySpace blocked Photobucket images and videos to drive down the sales price in an imminent acquisition.

(Link: MySpace to acquire Photobucket image-sharing site at CNET News)

In an unrelated item, Fox is seeking advertisers to buy spots for next year’s Super Bowl by offering to host the ads on a special area of MySpace.

(Link: Fox teams with MySpace in making online Super Bowl pitch at SilliconValley.com)

E-Commerce Law Briefs is a weekly feature appearing each Friday afternoon on E-Commerce Law. Each week, E-Commerce Law Briefs will provide a brief summary and commentary on recent legal news affecting e-commerce businesses.

Technorati Tags:  MySpace, Photobucket, Super Bowl

Comments

[Offshore Ecommerce]

I think acquisition has now become a trend among big players.

Most of the Big fishes have swallowed the smaller ones say GOOGLE and DOUBLECLICK. I was wondering about Microsoft on acquiring yahoo, what is your take on this? Is Microsoft acquiring yahoo just because it can’t compete with Google? Would Microsoft really buy yahoo?