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Columns & Departments

IP News

Howard J. Shire & Joseph Mercadante

Washington Judge Awards Syntrix $115 Million

Features

Attorney Uses Copyright To Attack Unflattering Web Post

Sheri Qualters

Federal law grants website operators immunity from defamation claims for third-party posts, so Boston lawyer Richard Goren used copyright law to go after a site's parent company over a negative posting.

Joinder Issues In BitTorrent Copyright Litigation

Richard Raysman & Jonathan P. Mollod

Over the past several years, there has been a national flurry of civil actions brought primarily by pornographic film makers alleging copyright infringement by individual file-sharers using the BitTorrent computer protocol. As one federal court noted, hundreds of thousands of John Does have been sued across the county since mid-2010, with copyright holders attempting to assert claims against unknown defendants identified by their IP addresses by joining them, in large numbers, into single actions.

Features

Best Practices for Formatting Word Documents

Roberta Gelb

Most law firms will say that their users "know" Word. The reality is that most of the documents we have seen could be improved dramatically. Unless you lift the veil and look beyond the printed document, you won't know that you have a "bad" document.

Features

Redesigning Your Firm's Website

Julie Gurney

As the appetite to consume and share content grows ' and our world becomes more and more mobile-connected ' law firms must work to improve the user experience of their sites to fit these evolving needs.

Features

Internet 'Data Scraping'

Anthony J. Dreyer & Jamie Stockton

The proliferation of Internet access and mobile devices has led to an exponential explosion of content on the Web, creating a vast repository of "publicly available" information. This has made it far easier for third parties to extract this data for commercial sale and use ' and to do so for free and without authorization. This data extraction, commonly referred to as "scraping," "crawling," or "spidering" (collectively "scraping"), creates legal issues and concerns for both sides of this issue.

Features

Marketplace Fairness Act May Help Clear Muddy Tax Waters

Wayne Berkowitz

With my mom probably one of a handful of people who haven't made an Internet purchase, I think it is fair to say that we have all seen certain online retailers almost bragging that there is no sales tax on merchandise ordered from their e-store. The first question this raises is whether the "qualifying order" language refers to the shipping, the sales tax or both.

Features

How Royalties Are Determined for New Material Written for Public Domain Music Compositions

Jeff Brabec & Todd Brabec

Not as much public domain material is recorded in comparison with original material, but if such a song becomes a hit or is on a successful album, the public performance royalties can be substantial provided the writer/arranger (who is many times the recording artist or record producer) holds the copyright in his or her version and registered it with the performance right society (PRO) with which the writer is affiliated.

Columns & Departments

Counsel Concerns

Stan Soocher

Advice-of-Counsel Affirmative Counterclaim Defense to Remain in Case Brought over Use of "Twilight" Marks<br>Former Litigation Attorney's Handling of Case Doesn't Relieve Film Company of Liability for Judgment<br>Motion to Disqualify Counsel Is Denied in Suit Involving Process for Selling Concert Recordings

Where Should A Franchisor Set Up Its Headquarters?

James Goniea

What is the best location in the United States for a franchisor to set up its headquarters? That is the question I recently posed to the ABA Forum on Franchising Listserv. The query elicited a flurry of fascinating responses, many of them quite detailed and well-considered.

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