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Entertainment Law & Finance
New FTC Guidelines for Social Media Influencers
Brad Kutner
Internet celebrities with big social-media followings are often approached for advertising and marketing deals, and the money flowing from these third-party arrangements can be in the millions. But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moved to update the guidelines for those who profit from such arrangements, and lawyers are saying the new rules involve big but unsurprising changes.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Top 5 Questions When It Comes to Strategically Growing Your Business With LinkedIn
Mary Obregon
When working with clients, we see a lot of common questions about using LinkedIn for strategic growth. Many people and companies are on this platform, and many are looking for answers on using it to its full potential. Here are some of the top questions that clients ask when it comes to leveraging LinkedIn for marketing.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
The Increasing Challenges of Verification on Social Media
Christine Au-Yeung and Chidera Dawodu
The recent flurry of online impersonators, ranging from accounts posing as President Joe Biden to the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, exposes the challenges of social media platforms’ verification and authentication processes. These events show that monitoring and policing trademark infringements and right of publicity violations can be increasingly difficult in the social media context.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
U.S. Supreme Court Will Hear Political Football Section 230 Case — Why This One?
Bruce Heiman
The Supreme Court has decided in the context of national security to consider the parameters of, and possible limits to, “Section 230” liability protections for social media companies. The question is why this case? The Supreme Court has decided to accept a case that, while sounding narrow and technical, actually goes to the heart of the way many Internet platforms operate — algorithmic targeted content recommendations.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Impersonation on Social Media: The Increasing Challenges of Verification
Christine Au-Yeung and Chidera Dawodu
The recent flurry of online impersonators, ranging from accounts posing as President Joe Biden to the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, exposes the challenges of social media platforms’ verification and authentication processes.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Fair Use of Embedded Content on Social Media
Stephen M. Kramarsky and John Millson
The change in character of social media, from purely social communication to a mixture of the social and commercial, has had knock-on effects for courts applying traditional legal principles, notably, the application of copyright law.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Legal Tech: Twitter’s Future and E-discovery
Cassandre Coyer
Whether Twitter’s doomsday is coming is still uncertain. But the threat of loss of years’ worth of companies’ data could be the impetus behind testing collection tools and reevaluating e-discovery processes.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Why Your Law Firm Should Be Investing In SEO and PPC
Taylor Tobey
Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) are extremely beneficial digital marketing strategies your law firm can capitalize on. The question you may be asking yourself now is whether you should invest your marketing dollars in SEO, PPC or both.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Is Twitter Worth the Bother?
Mary Obregon
A current question on a lot of marketers’ minds: “Is Twitter worth the trouble?” For some firms, Twitter may be the best social media platform; others may not say the same. Let’s discuss Twitter and whether the time and effort needed are worth it.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
The Slack Explosion: Convenient Yet Complicated, Part 2
Elizabeth Pollock-King
Best Practices to Simplify Future E-discovery
Part Two of a Two-Part Series
Just as the legal industry had to scramble to figure out how to handle email and other electronic documents a couple decades ago, e-discovery practices must once again shift to account for the realities of business being conducted via chat and the massive amounts of new types of data that chat platforms generate.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Ninth Circuit Allows Data Scraping from LinkedIn
Marianna Wharry
The Ninth Circuit reaffirmed data analytics company hiQ Labs Inc.’s ability to scrape publicly available data from LinkedIn’s platform despite the social media company’s claim that the data collected violated federal hacking laws.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
SAG-AFTRA’s Influencer Agreement and Waiver
Francelina M. Perdomo
For years, the legal framework governing the collaboration between influencers, advertisers and brands has been comparable to the Wild West, presenting multiple legal challenges to navigate. Influencer marketing exponentially grew when the COVID-19 pandemic drew performers to social media as the principal outlet to connect with their audience. As a result, SAG-AFTRA decided to venture into the fast-growing influencer market.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
The Slack Explosion: Convenient Yet Complicated
Elizabeth Pollock-King
Part One of a Two-Part Series
The informality of chat culture not only makes chat data harder to search, it also results in huge volumes of a new kind of data that must be processed in unique ways before it can be reviewed.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Opportunities, Risks and Strategies In the Metaverse
Brandon Leahy and Chloe Delehanty
While it is still unknown how the metaverse will take shape lawyers advising brands should familiarize themselves with the opportunities it presents, the risks involved, and strategies to consider for enhancing and protecting a client’s brand.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Brands In the Metaverse: Opportunities, Risks and Strategies
Brandon Leahy and Chloe Delehanty
While it is still unknown how the metaverse will take shape, lawyers advising brands should familiarize themselves with the opportunities it presents, the risks involved, and strategies to consider for enhancing and protecting a client’s brand.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Slut-Shamed In the Workplace? Avoiding Exposure for Your Employees’ Exposure
John G. Browning
Situations involving an employee’s voluntary online exposure rarely end well and can bring legal exposure for the employer.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Biometric Law Litigation Expands Beyond Social Media
Shari Claire Lewis
Social media has played an oversized role in lawsuits under state and local biometric privacy laws. Now, a New York City law that took effect in July is likely to significantly expand the range of biometric-related litigation beyond social media companies to a new group of defendants: retail stores, places of entertainment, and food and drink establishments.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Emojis and E-Discovery
Philip Favro
Emojis are an important aspect of everyday communication in 2021. Given their ubiquity, there should be little surprise that emojis have become a key source of evidence in civil and criminal cases.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Preserving Snaps: Understanding Retention Features of Messaging Apps
Philip Favro
The recent Doe v. Purdue University case out of the Northern District of Indiana — in which the court sanctioned plaintiff for failing to preserve relevant images and videos from his Snapchat application — teaches that counsel must understand the retention and deletion features of Snapchat and other messaging apps and social media if they are to help their clients preserve relevant ESI.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Evolving Court Views on Content Embedding
Shaleen J. Patel and Mike Hobbs
Recent legal and procedural developments associated with the ubiquitous Instagram social media site have created significant practical and legal risks for both copyright owners and account holders that entertainment industry professionals should note.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
To Embed, or Not to Embed, that is the Question
Shaleen J. Patel and Mike Hobbs
Would Shakespeare Post Hamlet on Instagram in 2020?
Recent legal and procedural developments associated with the ubiquitous Instagram social media site have created significant practical and legal risks for both copyright owners and account holders.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Create a Community to Connect and Empower
Ari Kaplan
I encourage you to cultivate your own community as a means of connecting and empowering your peers. These are a few ideas to help you launch and maintain a program.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Facebook and Instagram Developers Sued for Privacy Violations In U.S. and UK
Alaina Lancaster
Facebook filed two separate lawsuits in the UK and U.S. that the company says is part of an ongoing effort to hold developers that abuse its platform accountable.
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Marketing The Law Firm
How to Make Paid Digital Effective for Post-COVID-19 Law Firm Marketing
Josh Merkin
After spending the last six to eight weeks in COVID-crisis mode, most firms are now eyeing a move toward business recovery. This means that it is also now time for law firms to reevaluate their marketing strategies to ensure they are aligned to support business goals in this new climate. One overlooked area that law firms should consider adding to their marketing arsenal is digital paid media.
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Marketing The Law Firm
A 3-Step Formula to Maximize Your Social Media Effectiveness
Spencer Smith
The Ben Franklin Strategy
Benjamin Franklin will never know this, but he gave us the only social media strategy we need: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” In the middle of the COVID-19 health crisis, there’s never been a better time for a legal marketing professional to look for the good she or he can highlight within their communities, within their firms or companies, or for individual people.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
French Law on Removing Objectionable Online Content Rejected As Too Broad
Anne Bagamery
A new French law that would have required such social media platforms as Facebook to take down objectionable content within 24 hours has been rejected by France’s Constitutional Council as a disproportionate response to the proliferation of hate speech online.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Bit Parts
Stan Soocher
Right of Publicity Laws Don’t Pierce CDA Immunity Shield
Second Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Wolf of Wall Street Defamation Suit
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Marketing The Law Firm
Putting the “Social” Back into Social Media: Helping Attorneys Connect with Others
Jaimie B. Field
Most attorneys are expecting social media to be a panacea to bring in new clients during this incredibly unusual time in our history. As marketing and business development professionals and coaches, we know we have to teach our attorneys that, like any other marketing and business development tactic, there is no magic bullet. But that by using social media, it will help them create attention and assist in building relationships.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Judge Warns Facebook in Approving Record $5B Fine for Alleged Privacy Violations
Jacqueline Thomsen
The Judge Pointed Out that Some FTC Commissioners Wanted to Specifically Sanction Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg for the Company Sharing Private User Data With Outside Parties
A federal judge in Washington, DC, signed off on a record $5 billion fine imposed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Facebook for allegedly violating federal law and a previous order with its privacy practices.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, Even When It’s the Right One
Carlos Arcos
In this era of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, each day seems to bring a fresh story of PR missteps, whether it be a brand, organization or high-profile individual. Although you may feel you’ve read enough about these latest public relations nightmares, one area on which you might want to focus is the importance of an apology.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Photo Cases Test Copyright Law and Embedded Tweets
Raychel Lean
A New Yorker who settled a copyright lawsuit against several news outlets over a photo he took of star quarterback Tom Brady and Boston Celtics manager Danny Ainge has struck again. This time he’s suing a radio station owner in Florida federal courts in a case that could test the boundaries of an emerging area of copyright law, raising major questions about how media companies incorporate social media posts into online stories.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Podcasts Are the New Black for Law Firm Business Development
Gina Rubel
Before jumping into the podcast foray, law firm leaders must think strategically about podcasting as a tool for marketing and business development. Resources, bandwidth and buy-in are needed to produce a successful podcast — along with patience as podcasting success is determined by long-term results.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Digital Dive: 9 Best Practices for Blogging that Gets You New Business
Larry Bodine
Becoming a renowned expert in your field will bring you the best files from the most profitable clients — and the shortest path to becoming a thought leader is to write a blog.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Security Worries for Online Video Game Companies
Victoria Hudgins
Fortnite video game developer Epic Games Inc. isn’t just dodging digital adversaries — now it’s been slammed with a class action lawsuit over a data breach.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Legal Tech: Demystifying Social Media Discovery
Todd Heffner
Social Media Escapes an Easy Definition, But You Know It When You See It
While it would be helpful to understand the technical details of collecting data from various social media platforms, what’s more important is what parts of social media might be relevant to a dispute and what that means for both the requesting and producing parties.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Maximize the Impact of Firm Sponsorships with Social Media
Spencer X Smith
Pro bono work on an individual level is often not publicized, but the work you do in the community as a firm should be. Here’s how to ensure both you and the charities, nonprofits, etc. you’re supporting gain the maximum amount of exposure and awareness for their causes.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Basic Tax Issues for Social Media Influencers
Robert M. Jason
This article provides a general introduction to social media influencers and discusses common tax issues arising on the income side of the equation. What is taxable income? What happens if the influencer’s compensation is paid in equity?
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Entertainment Law & Finance
Social Media Influencers: Basic Tax Issues
Robert M. Jason
This article discusses the basic tax issues facing social media influencers, who have become an important element in the entertainment industry.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Are Online Reviews Threatening Your Online Reputation?
Melanie Trudeau
An attorney’s reputation may be one of the most important factors that clients consider before hiring counsel. In today’s world of online reviews, managing your reputation can be challenging. How should you manage online reviews to ensure your reputation and trustworthiness are intact?
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Podcast: Cognitive Security
Jason Thomas
We live in information environment that is unique to this point in time (social media, information overload). How do we know what’s true and what’s not?
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Best Practices for Social Media Advertising
Amanda H. Wilcox
Social media is growing up, and this means that brands of all sizes and across all industries are using social media as part of their marketing strategy. However, courts have confirmed that the basic tenets of intellectual property law and advertising law still apply. The following guidelines stem from common questions that clients often have in the area of social media marketing.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Digital Dive: How to Create (at least) Nine Pieces of Content in One Hour
Spencer X. Smith
In just one hour, would it be valuable to have at least nine pieces of content that your lawyer clients may use on your website and on social media?
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Marketing The Law Firm
Social Media Scene: The Easy Path to Success on Social Media — The 1% Rule of the Internet
Spencer X. Smith
You may have read a dozen “How To” articles about cracking the algorithms — which sound very mathematical — of any social media platform, but at the end of the day, you’re communicating with people.
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Marketing The Law Firm
‘Cause We Are Living in a Digital World …
David McCann
As with traditional branding, a digital brand is simply the perception individuals have of a business or organization online. Digital branding is a brand management technique that uses a combination of Internet branding and digital marketing to develop a brand over a range of digital venues, including Internet-based relationships, device-based applications and media. The objective is to establish and build trust with potential clients, especially while they are in the decision phase of the selection process.
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Marketing The Law Firm
'Digital Dive:' How to Use Reverse SEO to Suppress Negative Content in Search Engines
Marguerita Cheng
Reverse SEO is part of a firm’s online reputation management strategy that suppresses negative content such as bad service reviews in search engines so that potential clients and partner companies will have difficulty finding it.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Social Media Scene: How to Compel Your Staff to Share Your Firm's Social Media Posts
Spencer X. Smith
Consider advocating for your employees first before you ask them to advocate for you. Give your employees a reason to care.
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Marketing The Law Firm
'Marketing Tech:' How Law Firms May Ensure Social Media Compliance
Marguerita Cheng
How can law firms ensure social media compliance? What are the rules and restrictions to creating profiles, publishing content and communicating with prospects and clients? This article answers these questions and provides tips to help firms create a sound social media policy.
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Marketing The Law Firm
The Topography of a Strong Attorney Biography
John Buchanan
Part Two of a Two-Part Article
In addition to ensuring that a bio focuses on “the right stuff,” it is essential that the bio be both search engine and social media friendly.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Lessons Learned from the Business Development Coach’s Playbook
Peter A. Johnson
What does it take to be a successful attorney in today’s legal environment? For one thing, it takes a little help, which more and more often comes in the form of a business development coach.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Online Extra: Facebook’s Blockchain Bet Could Place It in the Data Decentralization Debate
Ian Lopez
Oft-Considered an Avenue for Individuals to Attain Greater Control over Their Digital Information, Blockchain Could Be Leveraged By Facebook to Change Its Status As “Gatekeeper” for User Data
Facebook Inc. recently announced that it will begin exploring different ways to incorporate blockchain into its infrastructure. Yet, questions remain over how the social media company will implement the technology and what sort of legal challenges doing so could portend.
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