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Decision of Note: <B>Song Sampling is Found <i>De Minimis</i></B>
December 01, 2003
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that placing a sampling loop of a six-second, three-note segment from a musical composition into a new sound recording wasn't copyright infringement because the use was <i>de minimis</i>. <i>Newton v. Diamond</i>.
Attorney Fees Update
December 01, 2003
Depending on the circumstances and the law, parties on either side of an entertainment suit may ask a court for an award of attorney fees. Following are court rulings from recent months that deal with this and related concerns. In future issues, Entertainment Law &amp; Finance will report on such relevant rulings in Attorney-Fee Updates.
Courthouse Steps
December 01, 2003
Recently filed cases in entertainment law, straight from the steps of the Los Angeles Superior Court.
e-Document Conversion & Native Document Review
December 01, 2003
Today, at the blink of an eye, documents, images, and communication are transmitted across the country and across the globe via a web of networked computers. A recent study conducted by the University of California Berkley found that in 2002, people around the world created enough new information to fill 500,000 U.S. Libraries of Congress. Plus there was a 30% increase in stored information from 1999, the last time the same study was conducted. The increase of new data per person works out to be the equivalent of a stack of books 30 feet high. All of these electronic transactions are creating "footprints" on hard drives, backup tapes, and other media sources that courts have held are discoverable in civil litigation. The process of collecting, searching, and producing these e-data trails is called electronic discovery. One of the emerging debates in the legal community on the topic of e-discovery is whether electronic documents and e-mail should be converted to a "uniform" format (such as a .tiff) or whether they should be kept in their native format for document review and production. This decision, which often occurs at the beginning of an e-discovery project, can affect almost every aspect of the e-discovery process going forward - preservation, metadata, searchability and cost. For example, if electronic data is not captured and accessed properly, the content of the document or the valuable metadata, behind the scenes data about the data, can be altered or destroyed.
Practice Tip: <B>Electronic & Digital Signatures in Word</b>
December 01, 2003
Have you ever had to print out a document just because you had to sign it before faxing it? Or have you ever done a merge mailing, only to have to print out and sign each letter individually? Wouldn't it be better if you could just sign all these documents electronically and send them electronically to their respective recipients? This article will shed some light on what is meant by electronic and digital signatures as well as provide details of how you can digitally sign a document in Word.
New Release from Time Matters
December 01, 2003
Time Matters Version 5, the latest iteration of the popular law practice management program, was released in May, 2003, and Service Release 1, which added more features, such as linking to HotDocs v. 6, was released in August.
Thin to Win?
December 01, 2003
While a good number of legal technology vendors have fully embraced the "thin" client, the so-called "fat" client-server based applications are still very much a part of the legal technology landscape. Where do we stand today? Are the promises of Web-based applications coming to fruition? Are there good reasons to stay with client-server applications? This article will present a brief overview of Web-based and client server applications and then provide some factors that can assist an organization in choosing between the two. It is hoped that this article will help dispel the modern myth that the Web is always better and provide guidance in your system selection process.
Containing Health Insurance Cost Increases
December 01, 2003
There's no relief in sight from rising health-care costs. Hewitt Associates, of Lincolnshire, IL, projects that health care costs will increase 15.4% this year, following an average rate hike last year of 13.7%. If this trend continues, Hewitt estimates, health coverage cost will double over the next 5 years. Law firms coast-to-coast therefore continue to search for their own magic bullets. While doing so, however, they're being careful not to shoot themselves in the foot. Firms see a strong benefits package as critical to retaining and recruiting employees, and therefore take a largely conservative approach to managing health-care costs - trying to maintain generous levels of coverage while minimizing the financial blow to employees.
MA Confidential: More 1099-MISCgivings
December 01, 2003
Does filing a 1099-MISC form without client consent violate a lawyer's professional ethical duty not to disclose client confidences? Absent such consent, how should a lawyer proceed? Using the example of our own state, Massachusetts, we illustrate in this article the analysis required to answer that question.
Optimizing Retirement Plans for Law Firms
December 01, 2003
Recent changes in the legislative and regulatory climate have made it possible and desirable to consider optimizing retirement plan contributions by combining defined benefit and defined contribution plans. But while combination plans can produce superior benefits, their designers must ensure that plans do not violate: the Internal Revenue Code rule that a plan qualified for favorable tax treatment must avoid discriminating in favor of highly compensated employees; or the requirement in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) that pension plans must not discriminate against employees on the basis of age. In Part One of this article, we introduce and compare some of these possibilities.

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