MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC

Copyright: Work For Hire Doctrine

Posted January 27, 2010 by Andrew Mirsky 0

“Work Made For Hire”, 17 USC §101: An original, copyright-able work (meaning: a work that falls within the subject matter of copyright protection) qualifies as a “work made for hire” if the work either (1) is created by an employee within the scope of his or her employment or (2) qualifies as “work made for hire” under the established evaluative criteria described below.

Significance of “Work Made for Hire”: The significance of a work being deemed “work made for hire” is that the beneficiary of that designation owns full copyright in the work outright and exclusively.  Thus, as between an employee an employer, the employer owns the copyright to any works created by that employee within the scope of his or her employment.  Likewise for a party contracting for the creation of a work from a non-employee.

Read More

Earnouts in Sales of Businesses: Risks and Strategies.

Posted January 4, 2010 by Andrew Mirsky 0

You sell your business for cash plus an amount to be determined based on earnings or other performance measurements of the business over the next 1, 2 or several years after the sale.  This is an “earnout” and can be a very lucrative upside to a seller.  It can also be attractive to a purchaser unable (or unwilling) to fully calculate the value of the business being purchased at the time of sale.

It also has obvious risks, particularly to a seller.  Commonly, the earnout involves a seller who will continue to participate in the business after the sale under some sort of employment or consulting arrangement with the new owners.  This theoretically gives a seller an ability to have some control over the post-closing success of the business, while giving the purchaser a way to incentivize (and control) the seller’s employment or consulting performance.

Read More

Cookies, Congress and Privacy: What’s the Problem?

Posted December 6, 2009 by Andrew Mirsky 0

Publishers are worried about cookies, specifically talk of regulatory action on the privacy front.  What’s the story here?

A Privacy Policy might typically say something like this:

“A ‘cookie’ is a small text file on your computer’s hard drive that our Web site uses to collect information about how you use our site.  The cookie transmits this information back to our Web site each time you visit a page on our site, thus allowing us to identify our most popular pages, features and data.”

To someone not working for an ad agency or at a publisher or for, say, Google, reading these terms, what they might read could be summarized like this: “Software … embedded in my computer … I have no choice … it stays there forever and ever … it will watch my every move and report back to its masters and possibly the government … my wife might find out.”

Read More

Social Media and 501(c)(3) – Putting Nonprofit Status at Risk?

Posted October 25, 2009 by Andrew Mirsky 0

A question came up about the new media activities of 501c3 organizations hosting social media platforms for the public (Thank you to Debbie Miller for her assistance with this research):

Question: Can a 501c3 private foundation or public charity put its tax-exempt status at risk by hosting a social media platform?  Specifically, could the advocacy and electioneering activities of individuals and groups using that social media platform be treated as the direct action – or facilitation of direct action – by that foundation of activities inconsistent with its tax exempt 501(c)(3) status?

Read More

Copyright 2022 Mirsky & Company, PLLC