News and Notes from Summer 2011
I’ve been staying busy with some interesting cases. Here are a few press clippings that may be of interest:
- I was quoted in CNNMoney.com regarding the BitTorrent cases and some of my experience in representing some of the people caught up in this practice: 50,000 BitTorrent users sued for alleged illegal downloads.
- One of my more interesting cases, a domain name matter brought by the Bureau of Libya under the Gaddafi regime, was recently featured in A fight over ‘Libya:’ The revolution complicates a cybersquatting case in Washington by the National Law Journal (subscription required).
- An article in Patch.com explained the state of BitTorrent case in the State of Maryland: Comcast, Verizon Ordered To ID Subscribers to Pornographers. I recently represented a client that was dismissed from a matter in Maryland and I have a few quotes near the end of the article.
I feel blessed to work with so many good people on interesting cases like these. If you’re looking to contact me for help on similar cases, you can visit my law firm’s website.
Eric Menhart Quoted in Business Insider
Recently, quite a bit of attention has been paid to sites like pleaserobme.com, which simply republish public Twitter posts of people tweeting about their present locations. PleaseRobMe.com republishes tweets of people that contain search strings like “left home,” that might be theoretically useful to robbers looking for an empty house.What liability would these sites likely incur if someone were actually robbed? In a word, none.
Follow Me on Twitter @EricMenhart
I’ve finally joined the Twitter bandwagon. I invite you to follow me here. I primarily post about professional issues, such as Internet law and intellectual property law. Posts discuss issues such as copyright, trademarks, and domain names. I also tend to keep on eye on interesting cases, pending legislation and industry happenings.
Eric Menhart On Brief in Appellate Win
A recent decision by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals addressed whether a private right of action under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) required a separate act of enabling legislation. Eric Menhart was on the brief for the prevailing appellant. Read the full text of the opinion: Portuguese American Leadership Council of the United States, Inc. v. Investors’ Alert, Inc. No. 04-CV-1187 (D.C. 2008).
The Court found that private causes of action may be brought in the D.C. Superior Court under the Act without the need for enabling legislation.
Eric Menhart Comments on Internet Sales Tax Issues
You may have noticed that the recent economic troubles are leading most folks to tighten their belts and rethink their spending. Many are also considering new sources of income. State and local governments are no different. The question as to whether States can legally collect sales taxes from online transactions is attracting attention, particularly given the hard economic times and the beginning of a new Congress with many new faces.
Eric was recently quoted in two articles addressing the topic. The first, in Forbes.com, was entitled “Web Sales Tax Looms.” FierceCIO also brought the issue to it’s readers attention in Debate Looms for Web Sales Tax.
Eric wrote an extended article entitled Taxing the Internet: Analyzing the States’ Plan to Derive Online Sales Revenue that explores the tax issues that are becoming more salient in the current economic and political environment. Published in 2007 by the Journal of State Taxation, the article is an in depth discussion of the legal and political barriers to states’ interest in universally collecting sales taxes on all types of online transactions.