Net News
Recent developments of note in the Internet industry.This month:<br>First Convictions in U.S. Peer-To-Peer Piracy Fight <br>Music Industry Boss Defends File-Sharing Lawsuits <br> 8th Circuit: No ISP Subpoenas
SEC Says Google's Lawyers Goofed
Google and its general counsel, David Drummond, reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the company's failure to register more than $80 million in employee stock options in the 2 years prior to its IPO.
Protecting Internet Communications
Law firms use Internet technology to communicate in ways that were simply not possible 10 years ago. This has allowed lawyers to share information as never before. More importantly, the technology associated with the Internet allows law firms direct control over Internet communications because they own the individual networks that allow information to be shared. This direct control brings increased liability for copyright infringement, unless firms comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Compliance requires little investment of time or money. Similarly, e-mail protection is readily available at little or no additional cost.
Online Apple Secrets Publisher Finds Heavy Hitter
The 19-year-old publisher of a Web site facing a recent lawsuit over an article about a top-secret $499 Apple computer originally had to plead for legal assistance. Not only did Terry Gross, a partner in the San Francisco-based Gross & Belsky LLP, step up to the plate, but he appears to be willing to play hardball.
Book Review: <i>The First Myth of Legal Management Is That It Exists</i>
Written by our new Board of Editors member, Ed Wesemann, and published in 2004 ' with profits donated to the ALA ' this collection of skillfully crafted essays provides illuminating observations and pithy advice on a wide range of challenges facing law firms and lawyers. The book's first chapter, on profitability problems larger firms have with small clients, was the springboard for this month's roundtable discussion
Tax Shelters: New IRS Disclosure Requirements Carry Serious Penalties
Touted as one of the most substantial overhauls of the Internal Revenue Code in years, the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 was signed by the President on Oct. 22, 2004. Like any number of omnibus Congressional tax bills, the "Jobs Act" is a broad-reaching collection of miscellaneous tax provisions. <br>Title VIII of the Act, in Subtitle B ' "Provisions Relating to Tax Shelters," contains new provisions that limit the benefits of tax shelters. Among these new provisions are requirements that govern how certain transactions must be reported to the IRS. While reporting rules existed prior to the Jobs Act, these new requirements carry substantial penalties to encourage compliance and curb participation in abusive tax shelters.
New Tax Rules May Affect Payments To Retiring Partners
One of the most important provisions of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 establishes a new regime for taxing deferred compensation. Newly created Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code likely will affect every arrangement now in place or hereafter adopted that promises the payment of deferred compensation to current and former employees, directors and other service providers. Such an arrangement may well include a partnership's unfunded retirement program for its partners.
