Definition for the Day-EBIT: Earnings Before Tax and Interest

You will often see in the venture capital universe these four letters “EBIT.” They will dance playfully around language often proclaiming a certain company is profitable and should be purchased for some multiple of the EBIT. Hence EBIT, which stands for Earnings Before Interest and Tax, is a valuation metric that purports to offer a fair statement of what the company is actually worth. Traditionally, it is applied to determine a fair purchase price based on the EBIT, or all company profits, operating and non-operating, without deducting interest and income taxes.

Caving Under the Weight of Grokster II and the Ozzies Kazaa Settles with the Music Industry

A landmark settlement today has Kazaa feeling 115 million dollars poorer. The peer-to-peer file sharing network has decided to forego any more legal duels and will pay its way out of further music industry wrath. Hugely influential in this decision were the Grokster II ruling and a recent ruling by the Federal Court of Australia. While Grokster II clearly set its sights on operations such as Kazaa, the Australian decision confirmed Kazaa was in violation of Australian copyright law.

In addition to the settlement figure, Kazaa will undoubtedly submit to a variety of "clean your act up" stipulations. Early reports suggest that the Kazaa will, among other things, have to employ filters to prevent trafficking of illicitly traded copyrighted files.

Web Click Contracts--Revisiting the "Terms of Service Agreement"

As Web 2.0 (or 3.0 with a service patch?) is increasingly the talk of the day with new e-startups abounding, the web agreements that accompany those websites are critical.  In particular, the “Terms of Service”, the agreement that sets the ground rules for visitors and users, must be carefully structured to address your business needs.  Olivera Medenica wrote a very accessible primer on the subject for Womens’ Biz, a monthly business journal. It is available as a PDF in two parts.  

Part 1
http://www.womensbiz.us/issues/july06/WBJuly06_1.pdf

Part 2
http://www.womensbiz.us/issues/july06/WBJuly06_8.pdf

The Law on Being Seen Through an Artist's Eyes

I apologize for the dearth of recent entries. We have been running several litigations and have an aggressive lecture schedule coming up so the blog became the neglected child.

In the meantime I thought I would share an interesting exercise in the legal looking glass. David Byrne of Talking Heads, solo performance, and experimental art fame maintains his own blog that spans a variety of topics with philosophically easy on the brain musings. One such musing was on the varied legal perspectives on what we in America loosely refer to as the "Right of Publicity." Essentially the property right when it comes to your own image, likeness, voice, etc., it is something I hear many discuss, with little understanding. More importantly, it is a "right" that is construed differently across the fifty states (consider CA's allowance of posthumous claims in light of NY's bar on posthumous claims.) What all the disagreement demonstrates is a naturally subjective view on how and for how much we should be viewed by others in a world of a trillion lenses between paparazzis, surveillance cameras, web cameras, cell cameras, etc.

Byrne offers an interesting and ironic breakdown of high profile cases and the different outcomes they may have faced in a variety of legal systems, including the UK, France, and the US. Often lawyers assume that the real world application of the law is an intuitive right of the box experience; that we as American citizens in a country built on the rule of law should all take in as easily as breathing. Ironically, if this were so, there would be no judicial review and no litigation. Byrne's viewpoint as an artist/musician, who, sometimes as mad scientist, sometimes as sweet schoolteacher, and sometimes post-proto-punker (or whatever label you like), experiments with "communication" was striking. Sometimes as an attorney it helps to see things outside our own looking glass.