Technology Contracts – Media Tech Law

Blog and Writings We Like

Posted January 21, 2018 by Andrew Mirsky 0

This week we highlight three writers discussing timely subjects in copyright and privacy law, as well as the on-boarding process for Software as a Service (SaaS) customers: Eric Goldman wrote in the Technology & Marketing Law Blog about the use of copyright law as a “reputation management” tool; Katie Townley and Christie Grymes Thompson posted in Ad Law Access about a request from advocacy groups that the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recall the Google Home Mini smart speaker over privacy concerns; and Aleksander Gora provided useful guidance on the Webdesigner Depot website about designing effective sign-up forms.

First Circuit Rejects Copyright Workaround to Section 230 – Small Justice v. Ripoff Report

Eric Goldman published an interesting article in the Technology & Marketing Law Blog about using copyright law as a way to protect one’s reputation. In Small Justice v. Ripoff Report (which was most recently argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit), the plaintiff, Richard Goren, ran a law firm called Small Justice and one of the defendants, Christian DuPont, wrote two negative reviews about Small Justice on the website Ripoff Report. Goren sued DuPont in state court for libel and intentional interference with prospective contractual relations, and the court awarded Goren a copyright over the reviews as a default judgment. Goren then asserted a copyright claim against Ripoff Report, who had published the reviews. (Interestingly, Professor Goldman questions whether the state court had the authority to award copyright ownership, but notes that the First Circuit did not address this point.)

Free Legal Documents!! (Sure, Why Not?)

Posted March 13, 2015 by Andrew Mirsky 0

Why would lawyers give away legal documents for free? Or better yet, why wouldn’t they do it? Daniel Doktori offered some good answers to these questions when he wrote recently in TechCrunch about Big Law’s answer to the Open Data movement.

But what’s most remarkable about the big lawyer giveaway – get there early, get your legal docs, we’re opening this year at 6pm on Thanksgiving Night! – may be how unremarkable it really is.

Doktori writes of law firms’ “mimic[ing] their small clients’ ‘freemium’ business development model”, suggesting that giving away free stuff is simply a way to get clients in the door where they (hopefully) will become paying clients. Perhaps. But it seems unlikely that a cash-strapped startup will hire a $700 per hour firm of attorneys simply because that firm gave away a generic founders’ subscription agreement. And with so many law firms offering the exact same documents – Doktori cites his own firm’s service as well and those of Cooley LLP and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP – there’s not much here to really differentiate the value of these documents in the first place. Not to mention the various non-law firm startups getting into the same game, including Founders’ Workbench (mentioned by Doktori) and low-cost services from Rocket Lawyer and others.

Liability for Data Loss in the Cloud: Why No One Accepts Liability? Why Carve it Out?

Posted March 21, 2013 by Andrew Mirsky 0

Why is liability for data loss typically carved out or tightly limited in cloud service and IT outsourcing contracts? A common disclaimer in contracts for cloud services (and sometimes plain old IT outsourcing) runs like this:

You agree to take full responsibility for files and data transferred, and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on our servers. We will not be responsible for any data loss from your account. (From http://techtips.salon.com/liability-loss-data-under-hosting-agreement-2065.html (emphasis added))

What is the Liability from Data Loss?

First, what exactly is the liability – from data loss – that is being disclaimed? What is the risk? For that, we turn to Dan Eash writing in Salon’s “Tech Tips”:

Your site might be corrupted by hackers and spammers because your host didn’t properly secure the servers.
Your host might do weekly backups, but something goes wrong and you lose days of work.
You might have customers in a hosting reseller account who lose data because the host you bought the account from didn’t do regular backups.
You might even have an e-commerce site where new customers make daily purchases. If something goes wrong, how do you restore lost orders and customer details without a current backup?

I would add a 5th scenario: You just don’t know.

SaaS: Software License or Service Agreement? Start with Copyright

Posted July 16, 2012 by Andrew Mirsky 0

SaaS, short for “Software as a Service”, is a software delivery model that grants users access to a program while the software itself and its accompanying data are stored off-site, on a vendor’s (or another third party’s) servers. A user accesses the program via the internet, and the access is provided as a service. Hence … “Software as a Service”.

In terms of user interface functionality, a SaaS service – typically accessed via a subscription model – is identical to a traditional software model in which a user purchases (or more typically, licenses) a physical copy of the software for installation on and access via the user’s own computer. And in enterprise structures, the software is installed on an organization’s servers and accessed via dedicated “client” end machines, under one of many client-server setups. In that sense, SaaS is much like the traditional client-server enterprise model where servers in both cases will likely be offsite, the difference being that SaaS servers are owned and managed by the software owner. The “cloud” really just refers to the invisibility of the legal and operational relationship of the servers to the end user, since even in traditional client-server structures servers might very likely be offsite and accessed only via internet.

MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC

Blog and Writings We Like

Free Legal Documents!! (Sure, Why Not?)