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Category Archives: General Litigation
Harkening back to the dot com days of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the forthcoming Facebook initial public offering (“IPO”) will be one of the more highly anticipated IPOs in the tech and social media world. Facebook’s market cap seems to compound by the day, hovering between $80 and $100 billion, placing it amongst the largest companies in the world. Is the excitement warranted, or should we be more cautious about how the immensely popular company operates? Internet social media companies like Facebook make their money largely through advertising. We are at a point in technology where it has never been easier for companies to know more about our preferences. With a public Facebook profile, for example, companies can learn nearly everything they could want to about a person – location, education, favorite books and movies, recent purchases, location of friends and countless other details that people willingly post….
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Every couple of years from the 1990s to today, the debate on the link between video game violence and real world violence makes headlines when a violent act occurs allegedly as a result of the perpetrator’s play of a particular video game. The accusations are similar, though the games being blamed have changed over the years – Mortal Kombat, Doom, Final Fantasy VIII, EverQuest and the Grand Theft Auto series are a handful of the video games blamed for an act of violence. Lawsuits involving these games have ended up with the same result – dismissal – as courts have not been willing to overlook the strong protections offered by the First Amendment of our country’s constitution. We often think of the right to say what we want when the First Amendment comes up, and this protection also extends to creative works, a group that includes video games and other…
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The main benefit of a partnership – its flexibility – can also become a liability when a major change occurs like deciding to bring someone new on board as a partner. The partnership agreement may not have been worded well enough to handle the change, and it could lead to conflict. In a state like California, which like most has passed the Uniform Partnership Act, if a partnership agreement is silent on a matter, state law – often contract law – fills in the holes, which may not lead to a welcome result. To avoid problems when bringing a new partner on board, partnerships and similar business entities should have clear provisions in their operating agreements. To bring someone new into a partnership, it is common for the partnership’s partners to have to vote the new person in and for the new person to contribute to the partnership at least…
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