General Counsel

These lawyers got (video) game — Firms retool their entertainment practices to cater to the video game industry. A year ago, newly minted lawyer Shawn Foust approached a senior partner at his Century City firm with an idea: dedicate an entire practice to the video game industry. ¶ Today, the 26-year-old coordinates a team of 20 lawyers at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton that tackles mergers, licensing contracts and other deals that help make the burgeoning game business hum. ¶ "I'm pursuing my lifelong dream of combining the two things I love -- games and law," Foust said. ¶ Never a group to steer clear of... [Tags: century city, consumer spending, game business, game practice, general counsel]

Why The Center for American Progress Rules — Back in 2003, three rich families--Soros, Lewis, Sandler--decided to spend a few million dollars to create a new think tank in Washington. (They also recruited their friends.) It wasn't a lot of money. With a budget of $10 million or so when it started, the annual budget of the Center for American Progress now hovers around $25 million. Compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to run a campaign, or the tens of millions corporations and interest groups spend on lobbyists, this is chump change. But in terms of political power, the return on investment has been... [Tags: alum, alums, center for american progress, chump change, co director]

NBC's Rick Cotton Apparently Unable To Properly Monetize Value — I'm beginning to wonder if NBC Universal simply sends General Counsel Rick Cotton out to the press to make the most ridiculous, unsupportable statements for their PR value. Otherwise, you have to wonder how the man keeps his job, as pretty much any of his well-publicized statements should make shareholders question his business acumen. This is the guy who claimed that the government should force ISPs to filter unauthorized content because piracy was causing poor corn farmers to lose money (despite the fact that corn farmers are doing better than ever, and there's no evidence that they're impacted by piracy... [Tags: andy samberg lazy sunday, bank robberies, benefit, business acumen, confidence]

Ogden a Top Candidate for Justice Dept. No. 2 — By Carrie Johnson David W. Ogden, who oversees the Justice Department transition for President-elect Barack Obama, has emerged as the top candidate to become the department's second in command. Ogden, a partner at the WilmerHale law firm in the District, ran the Justice Department's civil division during the Clinton administration. He also has experience with military issues after working as a deputy in the general counsel's office at the Defense Department. He developed close ties...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.... [Tags: barack obama, carrie johnson, clinton administration, close ties, david w ogden]

"Lazy Sunday" Responsible For YouTube's $1.5 Billion Sale? — Via Ars Technica: How did YouTube turn itself into such an essential worldwide service that Google plunked down $1.5 billion in cash and prizes to acquire the video sharing site? It depends who you ask, of course, but NBC Universal's general counsel, Rick Cotton, has his own answer: the cupcake-munching white rappers of Lazy Sunday fame. In other words, NBC made it possible, but YouTube made all the money. In this view, YouTube was a nice place for emo kids to post rants about Britney Spears, but this sort of stuff hardly made YouTube an essential visit. No, what built... [Tags: cash and prizes, commercial content, cupcake, daily show, emo kids]

Scott Gilmore: Bowoto v. Chevron: Approaching the Arguments — In week four of the trial, we saw Chevron make its case before a San Francisco jury. To my eyes, it was the legal equivalent of The Empire Strikes Back--the dark lords of the extractive industries pitting their limitless resources against a scrappy band of rebels. We even had a Karl Rovian figure -- Chevron's General Counsel Charles James--silently presiding over the defendants' table. (Read Andrew Woods excellent exposé here.) Unfortunately, my metaphor gets mixed on the plaintiffs' side: attorney Bert Voorhees is probably more Will Riker from Star Trek: TNG than Han Solo. My point: Chevron's defense has been... [Tags: andrew woods, chevron, civil lawsuits, closing arguments, dark lords]

Did "Lazy Sunday" make YouTube's $1.5 billion sale possible? — NBC Universal's general counsel suggested this week that Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday" clip almost singlehandedly propelled YouTube into the national spotlight and made its sale possible. Not surprisingly, YouTube takes issue with the idea that its house was built with the bricks of infringing content. Read More...... [Tags: bricks, general counsel, lazy sunday, national spotlight, nbc]

The Microsoft-Novell Linux deal: Two years later — Two years ago this month, Microsoft forged its controversial partnership with Novell that, among other things, had the two companies agreeing not to sue each other over intellectual property issues, in part to protect Suse Linux users over any patent litigation from Microsoft.Just how well has that deal worked out? That depends on whom you talk to.Microsoft and Novell paint nothing but a rosy picture of the arrangement. "[Customers] like the idea that Microsoft and Novell are in the same room," says Susan Hauser, Microsoft's general manager for strategic partnerships.[ Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez recently... [Tags: boycott, co editor, deputy general, free software community, general counsel]

Gartner: 85 Percent of Enterprises Using Open Source [Voices] — By Matt Asay, Blogger, CNET, The Open Road Admit it. When you read that headline–”Gartner: 85 percent of enterprises using open source”–you assumed that was a good thing, right? Who’s afraid of enterprises saving a lot of money and getting much more flexible IT for their IT budgets? Gartner, apparently. According to Gartner, that widespread adoption is cause for alarm, as Glyn Moody rightly notes (and pillories). Somehow, Gartner assumes that if 85 percent are using open source and 69 percent don’t have a formal open-source management team, the world is going to end. As Moody notes, however, IT organizations... [Tags: adoption, asay, blogger, budgets, gartner]

Gartner: 85 percent of enterprises using open source — Admit it. When you read that headline - "Gartner: 85 percent of enterprises using open source" - you assumed that was a good thing, right? Who's afraid of enterprises saving a lot of money and getting much more flexible IT for their IT budgets? Gartner, apparently. According to Gartner, that widespread adoption is cause for alarm, as Glyn Moody rightly notes (and pillories). Somehow, Gartner assumes that if 85 percent are using open source and 69 percent don't have a formal open-source management team, the world is going to end. As Moody notes, however, IT organizations have virtually nothing to... [Tags: adoption, amp, budgets, critical processes, free software]

Banks To Senate: Compensation To Go Off Cliff — Allegedly! We'll see if it really happens. Wealth-Bulletin: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America all said at a US Senate hearing that compensation will fall severely this year, particularly for senior executives. The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held a hearing yesterday on oversight of the Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act and how financial institutions were using the funds they received from the US government. Gregory Palm, general counsel at Goldman Sachs, said that since the year is not finished no compensation decisions have been made, but stressed that bonuses will be paid only out... [Tags: amortisation, bank of america, bonus pool, cash compensation, compensation decisions]

Press “Upload” on that Video: “Point Is Not To Bust People,” Says NBC — The point is to actually make fair use  — fair and creative use — use of someone’s professionally produced content, if you’re going to post a video online. The executive vice president and general counsel of NBC Universal, Rick Cotton, this afternoon said that 99 percent of all videos that it orders taken down from video [...]... [Tags: bust, executive vice, general counsel, nbc, vice president]

Bill Richardson: Secretary Of State? — The Wall Street Journal reports: The battle for America's top diplomatic post spilled into view Tuesday, as some Hispanic leaders made a public push to have President-elect Barack Obama name Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, as his secretary of state. ... The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, an umbrella organization of 26 Hispanic groups, called on Mr. Obama to select Gov. Richardson, who endorsed Mr. Obama in March after dropping out of the Democratic race for president in January. Gov. Richardson, a Mexican-American, is a seasoned diplomat, having served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill... [Tags: ambassador to the united nations, barack obama, bill clinton, bill richardson, cabinet level]

Tesla Motors general counsel unlucky in court of love, too [Craig Harding] — Why did electric carmaker Tesla Motors lose its trade-secrets case against rival Fisker Automotive? We're no legal eagles, but a tipster suggests Tesla general counsel Craig Harding was distracted by his intramural extracurriculars: You might want to take a closer look at the General Counsel for Tesla Motors. He has quite the reputation as the unsuccessful ladies man amongst the women of Circle Star. He often takes unlucky ladies to Zibibbo in Palo Alto. I have seen him there a few times with very unhappy looking dates. If he spent less time chasing women and more time doing his job,... [Tags: arbitrator, bad faith, carmaker, circle star, closer look]

Obama confuses Harvard lawyer for tech guy [Julius Genachowski] — I'm from MIT, so I'm hardwired to hate on Harvard Law grad Julius Genachowski, the so-called technology guy newly named to our Internet President's transition team. His company, LaunchBox, helps Web and mobile entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to get seed funding. That makes him a Paul Graham wannabe to me. He spent eight years working for Barry Diller at IAC as general counsel. Is that a plus or a minus? To be fair, Genachowski is said to be a clear thinker, and he hasn't yet locked up Barry O's slot for America's CTO. Insider gossip says he's eyeing the FCC... [Tags: barry diller, cto, fcc, general counsel, going home]

YouTube's Illegal Clip Catcher is 75 Percent Effective, Report — To identify illegal video uploads, YouTube has implemented software technology to "catch" content which infringes on the rights of copyrights holders.  NBC Universal's general counsel Rick Cotton tells ZDNet's Tom Steinert-Threlkeld that the software is identifying 75-80 percent of illegal uploads.  For Viacom, which is locked in a legal battle with Google over illegal uploads, it has taken to watching videos through a team of 24 YouTube (human) watches who can watch 40-50 clips an hour and have identified some 375,000 illegal uploads as of the end of August, ZDNet reports.  A summary was published this morning, the full... [Tags: audible magic, content owners, dailymotion, filtering software, general counsel]

Groups Fear Language Barriers Will Translate to Lost Votes at Polls — The Flushing section of Queens provides a vivid display of the many languages of New York City: A church offers services in English, Chinese and Spanish. One business sign after another is written in Chinese. And on Election Day, voters will cast ballots in a Taiwanese community center. Diverse cities such as New York face daunting challenges Tuesday as they try to ensure that signs and ballots are printed in other languages including Spanish, Korean and Chinese, and that interpreters are available to help voters whose English fluency is limited. Some advocates of minority voter participation are concerned over whether... [Tags: ballots, broward county, business sign, department of justice, education fund]

Obama White House Counsel: Robert Bauer? — Attorney Robert Bauer has been mentioned as a possible pick for White House Counsel in an Obama administration. The ABA Journal recently assessed his chances: As a partisan regular with a street-fighter's zeal, Bauer has earned a reputation among some Republicans as the "focus of all evil." But they weren't all that crazy about him in the Hillary Clinton campaign either. In March, Bauer crashed a Clinton campaign conference call with reporters, calling into question a charge that Obama workers had violated Texas party rules during post-primary caucuses. An early Obama supporter, Bauer is a regular contributor to the Huffington... [Tags: aba journal, bill bradley, calling into question, campaign finance, caucuses]

Obama Attorney General: Deval Patrick? — Obama's good friend Deval Patrick, currently the governor of Massachusetts, has been mentioned as a possible Attorney General in an Obama administration. The American Bar Association recently profiled Patrick's chances of being the next Attorney General: Obama and Patrick aren't just friends. They swim like a two-fish school. Both had fathers who deserted them as youngsters. Both are spellbinding orators and Harvard Law grads. And when Obama appropriated some of Patrick's lines and manners into his speeches, the shared words and constructions were quickly acknowledged as the collaboration of friends. Patrick clerked for a judge in the 9th U.S. Circuit... [Tags: american bar association, assistant attorney general, clinton administration, coca cola, constructions]

The Wall Street Journal today rounds up the horde of prominent Republicans jumping ship to Barack Obama. Now one of McCain's actual advisers has switched sides: Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January. This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by... [Tags: absentee ballot, adviser, barack obama, biden, conservative thinkers]