Dozier Internet Law, PC

"Internet Attorney": How We Work

You go to a large firm, arrange a conference call, and tell the Intellectual Property lawyer that someone came to your site, ran a spider, took your content, and launched a competing site. That someone, you just found out, is a former business partner who is also defaming your company on blogs. The IP lawyer, adept at filing copyrights and trademarks, drafting licensing agreements, and all of the standard IP work, looks dazed. He sees a litigation issue, and reschedules the call so he can include the litigation team. The litigation team asks you to explain what a spider is to them, but instead opts to bring in a young lawyer in an unrelated department who "knows technology" to assist them. When the business partnership issue comes up, they call their corporate and business organization lawyer to see what actual legal obligations exist and the issues surrounding the business entity ownership. While they are doing this, the contract department lawyer is called to get his feedback on your site's user contract to see if the access was prohibited by contract, and then the post judgment remedies lawyer (bankruptcy and collections) will evaluate the ability of this ex-business partner to pay a judgment if monetary damages are pursued. And, of course, the IP lawyer is still involved to guide the team on the copyright issue, but he is busy getting the Ist amendment lawyer involved to see whether you can obtain an injunction prohibiting this former partner's blog attacks. You can envision a very funny Youtube video about this process, can't you? A week later you realize that the legal issues include contract, copyright, business organization, litigation, torts, freedom of speech, bankruptcy and collections.

Here is how we work. Our firm is organized by the nature of the client. But instead of having a general practice in which this would be difficult to manage, we only handle the law of the web. If your legal issue is outside this subject matter, we refer you to another firm. That way, we can organize our practice around the subject matter of the web, and not have to divide our expertise by legal category. In the example above, this meeting would have involved one lawyer with the expertise to explain to you the issues involved with the legal partnership entity, the terms of use, the copyright and related infringement, the unauthorized access under state and federal computer crimes statutes, litigation, first amendment, and debt collection if this ex-partner filed bankruptcy.

Yes, we work in a highly collaborative environment as a team, but one team working on the same type of issues every day. I think that makes a big difference to our clients, particularly when a quick answer is needed to a pressing need. Big firms struggle with this because their skill sets are spread out among many different departments. Small boutique firms with an intellectual property practice struggle because they often don't have the wide scope of experience necessary.

I am not sure that firms can ever move away from being organized by legal specialties because it adds significant value to the big client. Lawyers who organize and manage corporate filings and registrations are really good at that. Employment lawyers are really good at dealing with employment and personnel matters. Litigators are trial lawyers, and they are really good at trying cases. This creates an obvious benefit for most clients of the firm. But not for the Internet business client who is faced with a problem that requires expertise across multiple legal practice areas.

Our skills are very broad in nature, but highly focused in application. Holistic analyses of problems or issues are at the core of our value equation. So for all of you who wonder why we limit our practice so "narrowly" to the law of the web, that's why.

SES Conference Update

The search engine industry conference in Silicon Valley was quite a show. Several thousand attendees (many of the biggest names in online search). Keep an eye out for an interview I did with the main Search Engine Watch website on trademark infringement and related issues for the SEO industry. There will also be a video coming out on Youtube from an interview I did with another industry site.

My take is that the industry is maturing, but Google basically is in the driver's seat. The entire SEO and online marketing industry follows Google's lead in almost every arena. Remarkable to see the devout following. It's also interesting to watch Microsoft, Yahoo and others mimic many of the Google offerings and business models (months or years behind Google). If anyone questions the dominant role Google is playing in the online advertising space they probably weren't at the conference.

Also had the opportunity to spend some time at the Google HQ. Interesting place, obviously, and the reputation is seemingly deserved. I heard one young recent college grad explain to another Googler that he had been there three weeks, and it was like Disneyland and he never wanted to leave. I guess having employees who are enthused and want to work all the time is business justification for the unique and relaxed work environment.

Our Beverly Hills office is jumping with music industry work. This area is exploding. We met alot of people from the mainstream music labels and related businesses looking to leverage assets into online businesses. Legally most of the sites will be fine. The success will lie in execution, and it will be interesting to see how the artistic and creative types do in a technology and business environment with competition coming from all corners of the globe. 

Silicon Valley Lawyer this Week

Just got back from HostingCon in Chicago, and I'm off again to San Jose for SES this week. We'll be there to meet many of our Silicon Valley clients and everyone else who wants to drop by. It's refreshing to get out and get some face time with those innovating the latest and greatest web based business strategies. I've been in this industry since 1994, raised venture capital and gone through the Internet bubble of the late 1990's as an entrepreneur, and with the evolution of technology and the business of the web that seems a long time ago now. I cannot imagine how I could practice in this field if not constantly engaged in the latest and most exciting changes. You definitely need to live the web constantly to stay in touch with the legal issues.

We've been working with a lot of start-ups lately. Now that the VCs are investing aggressively again, things are really heating up. It's tough to draw the line between my Internet entrepreneur days and my lawyer's role today. Business decisions are for clients. Fortunately we are able to ask the right questions, I think, to help our clients avoid some really imprudent decisions. We have a lot of smart clients working on launching new businesses and with a little prompting they do a very good job of figuring things out and weeding out faulty business models or strategies. The market is so up and down right now that it is hard to say what the future holds, but VC money is back, and in a big way. With some luck we'll see some more successful IPOs, and with that will come higher valuations for clients and better VC terms. We'll see how that plays out.

One of the hottest areas right now is music industry sites. With all of the attention the music industry has been receiving lately, it's no wonder a lot more of these sites are being proactive in managing risk. It's really not rocket science to get protected from trademark, copyright, defamation, privacy, and 2257 liability, but I am not sure there are many law firms out there willing to stick their neck out to give a definitive opinion on what to do to protect yourself. I'll blog a bit about the Search Engine Strategies conference upon my return.

The Law of Protecting Data

In my former life, I was the architect of a high volume credit card account processing system allowing hundreds of businesses to conduct highly secure and reliable e-commerce with major financial institutions. Our clients were some of the largest banks and credit card issuers in the world. It was a hard sell to very conservative banks in the mid-1990's, to be sure. Data security and privacy concerns had to be overcome. Today, legislation in the banking and medical industries mandate security requirements surrounding data. But what laws mandate best of breed data security policies and practices for the typical online retailer? Some states have laws requiring disclosure of data losses. But, for the most part, legislators have stayed away from creating standards for data security. The reasoning is that Government can only go so far when it comes to dictating how companies operate internally. I like the concept of a "hands-off" approach to governmental intervention. I prefer to let the industry set and, most importantly, enforce data protection standards. And that is happening. Take a look at the PCI Data Security Standard from the payment card industry that everyone is required, by contract, to follow. Nothing about it seems particularly onerous. It includes logical steps a company should be taking already to protect systems and data, requires appropriate documentation, and it also mandates ongoing auditing. It looks a lot like the business requirements we worked with ten years ago.

And with the hands off approach so far of the federal government, everyone would be wise to implement the data protections standards and program voluntarily. Self regulation is critical to avoid the burden of another federal law that increases the cost of doing business. Once again, these regulations are part of the contract with all credit card issuers today, and the penalties for non-compliance are huge, and they apply to everyone accepting credit cards to varying extents.