Features
Actress Has No Copyright in Controversial <i>Muslims</i> Film
The work of an individual performer in a film isn't protected by copyright law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided when it ruled in an 11-judge <i>en banc</i> decision that actress Cindy Lee Garcia couldn't use copyright law to force Google to remove a five-second clip of the film <i>Innocence of Muslims</i> from YouTube and other Internet platforms.
Features
Examining Rulings On Pandora and Performance Rights
Little more than a week after music-streaming service Pandora Inc. won a key ruling in its royalty rate dispute with ASCAP, Pandora was dealt a setback in a parallel fight with ASCAP's rival performing rights organization, BMI.
Features
Anchoring the Firm Culture In Solid Rock
Over the years of my consulting practice, I have seen many formerly great law firms fail and go under. The reason? They lost the anchor to their core values, and then started drifting into issues and concerns that eventually destroyed them from within. Herein, I try to lay out what can be done to keep the anchor holding.
Features
Take Care in Using Consumer Data to Drive Dynamic Pricing of e-Commerce
Dynamic pricing is the practice of offering different prices to consumers based on various factors designed to maximize sales and profits, which may include the retailer's perception of the willingness of a particular consumer to pay at a given price point. This can be the basis for personalized pricing, the "holy grail" of which is to develop a methodology for "perfect price discrimination" that maximizes the amount each individual consumer is willing to pay.
Features
What ERP Can Teach About ELM Adoption
Following in the footsteps of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) holds out the potential to link risk and legal data to enable the global enterprise to proactively mitigate legal risk, streamline the legal process, and make insightful decisions in response to market or regulatory changes.
Features
International Design Patent Filing Considerations After U.S. Entry into the Hague Agreement
Effective May 13, 2015, applicants can file international design patent applications in a single, standardized application via the USPTO designating any of more than 62 territories, including the U.S. and European Union (EU), and can receive the same effective filing date in each jurisdiction. This important opportunity comes as the U.S. accedes to the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement.
Features
Digging into Data To Build a Vendor Management Program
For law departments, today's business environment is making it increasingly difficult to manage, control or reduce costs while being able to achieve satisfactory results. This is forcing companies to become more efficient in managing and controlling legal costs handled both internally by the organization and externally by outside counsel.
Features
<b><i>Online Extra:</b></i> FTC Sued Over Refusal to Disclose Data Security Policies
' The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was sued last month for refusing to turn over information about how the agency decides to bring data security cases. The Freedom of Information Act suit by Philip Reitinger, a former Department of Homeland Security official who is now president of a cybersecurity company, comes as the FTC'defends its role as data security cop'in two ongoing cases. …
Features
The Changing Face of Legal Research
Executing a powerful business development plan is a challenge every attorney faces. For attorneys at small firms and with solo practices, doing it without breaking the bank is one of the biggest hurdles to a thriving practice.
Features
SEC's Final Regulations for Implementing JOBS Act Crowd-Funding Capital Raising
The SEC issued draft regulations for implementing Title IV of the JOBS Act on March 25, 2015. The new regulations offer a way for an issuer to run an Internet-based, crowd-funding securities offering to both accredited and non-accredited investors.
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- Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent TrollsWith trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.Read More ›
- Meet the Lawyer Working on Inclusion Rider LanguageAt the Oscars in March, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made “inclusion rider” go viral. But Kalpana Kotagal, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll had already worked for months to write the language for such provisions. Kotagal was developing legal language for contract provisions that Hollywood's elite could use to require studios and other partners to employ diverse workers on set.Read More ›
- Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar InvestigationsThis article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.Read More ›
- The DOJ Goes Phishing: The Rise of False Claims Act Cybersecurity LitigationWhile the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative is still in its early stages and cybersecurity regulations are evolving, whistleblower plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the FCA to pursue alleged noncompliance with government cybersecurity requirements.Read More ›
- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.Read More ›