Leslie Gordon Fagen, Andrew G. Gordon
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Darren W. Johnson
In an important decision interpreting the fair use provision of the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §107), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that downloading full copies of copyrighted material without compensation to authors cannot be deemed "fair use." In <i>BMG Music v. Gonzalez</i>, 430 F.3d 888 (7th Cir. 2005), Judge Frank H. Easterbrook, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, rejected the defendant's argument that she was immune from liability because she was merely sampling songs that she had downloaded from the KaZaA file-sharing network on a "try-before-you-buy basis."
Features
Compiled by Eric Agovino
Highlights of the latest intellectual property news from around the country.
Jason D. Sanders
According to a recent decision in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the use of an illicitly obtained password and username to enter an otherwise secure Web site does not violate the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). In <i>Egilman v. Keller & Heckman LLP</i>, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28245 (D.D.C. Nov. 10, 2005), the court held that the law firm Keller & Heckman and others working in concert with it who entered Dr. Egilman's Web site through the use of a username and password that they were not authorized to use had not violated the DMCA, regardless of how the username and password were obtained. This surprising decision runs counter to other decisions interpreting the DMCA and would appear to create a significant loophole to the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.
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Stanley P. Jaskiewicz
To practice successfully, lawyers must rely on others all the time. Whether in litigation or corporate practice, few lawyers today can succeed without trusting associates, paralegals and experts to handle critical tasks quickly and cost-efficiently. It's the way of the modern workaday world. But would you turn your cases over to your firm's head geek?
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Michael Lear-Olimpi
What goes up from quarter to quarter and, in a sign of our times, doesn't appear to be headed down any time soon? <br>Take a sip of coffee, scratch your head, chew your pen for a few seconds ... tap your foot (hey ' no looking ahead to the next paragraph).
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Ari Kaplan
When German banking behemoth WestLB needed its people to agree on a strategic plan for developing human resources, it turned to mediator Alex Yaroslavsky and his New York City-based Yaro Group for guidance. Using an innovative system that combines brainstorming software from GroupSystems with traditional arbitration, Yaroslavsky facilitated a collaboration involving about 20 participants. The group, ranging from an analyst to a managing director, achieved in 2 hours what might've taken 2 weeks of discussion and review using only traditional arbitration techniques. <br>Traditional and e-businesses should take note.
Julian S. Millstein, Edward A. Pisacreta
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Jeffrey D. Neuburger
Recent cases in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.
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Robert J. Ambrogi
In the world of e-commerce advising, the Internet is a powerful research tool for lawyers, and there's more than one route to conducting on-point, effective online research.
Christy Burke
Ramping up for document-review is a challenging prospect, requiring a firm to react quickly and aggressively, depending on the requirements of the case. And the rising demand for attorneys to review vast stores of documents generated by click-of-a-button, lightning-fast contemporary e-commerce is also giving rise to law firms engaging in more electronically grounded commerce themselves as they advise and assist clients in meeting requirements of routine document review, storage and disposal as part of regular business, and the specifics of electronic discovery. <br>Vendors are offering off-site document-review rooms (DRRs) more frequently for customers who see the value these resources provide, and the DRR market is expanding.
Features
Bruce W. Marcus
It seems that one price we pay for a sound economy is a growing shortage of talent. Finding and keeping good talent in a strong economy, for many firms, is becoming a major intrusion in firm management, consuming large blocks of valuable time. <br>If you're a major international law firm, recruiting is relatively easy. But if you're not, you face a vast array of problems. You may be competing against larger or more prestigious firms. You may be in a small town that nobody ambitious wants to work or live in, or a town with expensive housing. You may find yourself in an area with a large number of competing firms. And recruiting, remember, is a competitive business.
