I think even attorneys can safely agree there are few things as tedious and by the numbers as serving legal papers on someone. In the US notice for legally binding instruments is fundamental, ancient, and sacrosanct. And few things in the law require as much religious devotion in practice. Hence in the US, most states have notice provisions that impose some kind of registered mail requirement. This approach is time honored for a reason.

With American society moving from apple pie to sci-fi, it's not much of a plot twist to hear there is a movement to factor the net into the notice equation. While i am one of the loudest advocates for a techno, forest friendly legal industry, you might be surprised to know that I am not a fan of recent events.

Just a week and a half ago, the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court held that Facebook could be used to serve legally binding documents (a lien notice for a home foreclosure). While some consider this the logical "next step", please allow me to be the closet luddite. While there might be a day not far from now where service by telepathy or flying car, Facebook is very much just the here and now (for now); it's simply just not a proper evolutionary step.

This is because the follow up use of mail service after personal service represents an understanding that postal mail is a transcendent communications technology. The Egyptians used it and George Jetson will likely use it on Alpha Centauri. And so many legal systems have judged mail to be a sufficient last ditch process on the part of a plaintiff.

Email, with its constantly changing free accounts, pointers, forward bots, ISP blackouts, IP blacklists, hard drive failures, blah, blah, and blah cannot be held under the same light as snail nail (slow but true it is...mostly). So how can Facebook be more bedrock than email? Simply, these communications technologies are not so constant that they can be stapled on the legal process (not to non-lawyers at least). If the rules become future driven overseas, there will be greater traction here. So what's the American response, should we allow service through MySpace?

Is Your Credit Card Merchant PCI Compliant?

For the would be ecommerce startup in this next round of net startups, sometimes PayPal isn’t going to cut it for the “look and feel” of a pro. So you may want to take a look at the PCI Compliance Guide. This is a best practices and compliance guide that has been adopted in the US (and founded by the credit card bigwigs) for credit card merchant services. As with most of the major net battle fronts this was motivated by privacy and identity theft concerns. Hence when choosing a credit card merchant, checking their PCI compliance should be part of the process.

Facebook Apps Now Less Coy with Application Verification Program

Facebook is a serious marketplace for brands looking to capitalize on the productivity lost by your employer, while you post your Monday bender pics at work. But let's face it, you're not going to fall for the ol' tell me about your product and its benefits routine. You want a new fangled, post-modern ad that nary bares a trademark, but cleverly enables you further mug the nation's GDP by wasting time in your cubicle.

Enter the Facebook "app." These Facebook platform widgets are small footprint mini programs that don't do anything but enrich the Facebook experience. Games, contact list organizers, da da experience generators, your options are limitless when dodging real world responsibility. And the only thing standing between you and more apps is the heretofore sketchy Facebook submission guidelines facing brands and developers.

Up until now, Facebook app developers had to interpret the current guidelines to determine if their app would be allowed into the Facebook environment. For example some of our developer clients were developing apps that were branded by major alcohol distributors. Did these apps run afoul of Facebook's prohibition on the sale of certain types of goods? Well, that is potentially debatable.

Facebook has set forth a new vetting process, the Application Verification Program. Hopefully with this new vetting process will provide clarity and predictability.

Facebook Platform's Application Verification Program is an optional new program designed to provide applications with a way to stand out and reassure users that they will provide a good experience. Verified applications will appear to users early next year, beginning in an application's About Page and the Application Directory.

We will help educate users to recognize the verification badge as a symbol for applications which are respectful, transparent and meet the guiding principles for trustworthiness. In addition, during the 12-month term of verification, users will see more information from verified applications as we increase their allocations for communication channels such as requests and notifications, and increase visibility of their stories in News Feed.

Though there is a not unnoticeable fee ($375 for the average business) involved it might provide the type of clarity that a developer and its client can use before investing resources into an app that wont ever get to see primetime.

We'll try to keep you posted.

New Front Opened Against RIAA

The ebbs and flows of any legal policy battle have little to do with the obvious moral colors of it all. Often, it seems the blacks and whites of rights and wrongs are not reduced to grays but blotted off the canvas altogether. Take the RIAA copyright war on unlawful file sharing. We've got our Cowboys and Indians and the rest should all play out like a bad Western.

The RIAA claims that because copyright provides a clear mandate against its defendants its got the white hat. The moral high ground argument being that unauthorized copying and distribution is infringement period.

However, Professor Charles Nesson, a Harvard law professor, has taken up the fight on behalf of the RIAA defendants by making a wholly procedural argument. He claims that the controlling statute, Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999, a criminal statute, does not provide the RIAA a private civil right to sue. Rather, says the professor, it is the government that should be the claimant. So much for black and white. And no luck for gray either.

Now some will view this as prototypical lawyerly obfuscation (i.e., the liberal smattering of over syllabled words to distract from the real issue). But procedural arguments are part and parcel of any legal debate. And where the issues concern the balance of power between industry and consumers the rules of engagement speak as much about the merits of the issue (i.e., the blacks and whites) as anything else. Unlike the typical arguments against the RIAA which attack the evidentiary basis of the RIAA’s claims, this new approach assaults the fundamental purpose of the statute. For according to the Professor, if the RIAA continues to have its way, it can unduly sue millions of people.

Celebrity Baby Spread Gets Copyleft License

Who says celebrities have to be Paris Hilton's or Jane Fonda's, either too stupid or too radical to make a practical impact on the habits of ordinary people? There is a happy medium for the privacy challenged apple of the press’ eye, where their actions can influence even the contentious halls of IP licensing. The exhibit A of this phenomenon: Gwen Stefani, who, with her hubby, shunned the typical diamond soaked tabloid contract for centerfold picture spreads of her newborn. Demonstrating both a post election “maverick” streak and an unnerving knowledge of alternative licensing schemes, Stefani instead hired her own photographer and licensed the resulting photos through a Creative Commons license. No that’s not a typo. She licensed her photographs for creative sharing and limited commercial use. Gwen is more than fuel for the dance floor, she’s a copyleft progressive in pop diva clothes. That being said, she did opt for the standard issue space case rock star name for the licensed babe, Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale. Yeah.

Lego Hits a Rainbow Colored Brick Wall

Who has not dreamed of building a life size Lego house or the life size Lego statue of oneself? If you don't raise your hand, you are either lying or you were raised by wolves. Everyone loves Lego and it has been a uniquely iconic fixture of the modern childhood. Its charm has inspired more than a few adults to realize their fantasies in bricks that come from rainbow factories.

Apparently the Court of First Instance doesn't share that enthusiasm as it upheld a 2004 decision to cancel the brick's trademark status. Essentially it has ruled that Lego cannot avail itself of trademark protection from a EU trademark registered in 1999 to prevent competition from making mock blocks. The ruling came in response to a dispute between Lego and a Canadian company, Mega Brands, which manufactures blocks that were so similar as to be compatible with Lego. This is a major event that will greatly the landscape, but only once the case is further appealed to the European Court of Justice.

Even Curmudgeon Lawyers Get Social

The near universal euphoria over social media marketing has even reached the most ad phobic professionals, lawyers. Considering the myriad ethical and professional restraints on the who, what, where, and how of legal marketing, it is both heartening and worrisome (lawyers love structural ambiguity, it keeps us contract attorneys employed) to see us venture into this realm. A Law.com article that touches on some approaches taken by lawyers thus far is here.