Real estate law regulates many aspects of property construction, investment, purchase and sale. As a home buyer, you have to consider several legal aspects of the purchase of a property to ensure that your rights as an owner will be fully protected in the future. There are some important things that you need to consider before making a purchase.

You need to ensure that the house which you purchase does not violate any zoning real estate regulations. Similarly, there should not be any environmental hazards on the property. The most important thing to check is whether there are any covenants or restrictions on the property.

You must ensure that all legal aspects are properly documented and that the house is not subject to any disputes or any restrictions imposed by previous owners. You have to look into the chain of title to the house. There must be no issues barring you from gaining full ownership of the property.

The financial matters regarding the purchasing of the property should also be looked into in the light of real estate law. If you are financing your home, the financial institution will want to confirm the value of the property. There are laws and regulations that govern lending for property and your lawyer will help you understand the purchase and financing process.

You should also consider tax issues. There may be capital gains issues when you sell your property if it is not your principal residence. In Ontario, you may be required to pay Land Transfer Tax when you purchase a property. There are some exemptions and your lawyer can advise you whether you qualify for such exemptions.

The actual property purchase agreement has to define clearly the obligations and rights of both the buyer and seller. All of your rights as an owner should be protected in case a dispute arises. Similarly, the mortgage agreement signed with your bank has to state clearly what the rights and obligations of you and the bank are. You should have a clear understanding of what legal actions the bank can take in case you default on your mortgage payments.

Real estate law is there to protect your rights as a property buyer and owner. In order to ensure that your rights are protected, you are highly recommended to use the services of a real estate lawyer. The lawyer will ensure that there are no legal issues that may affect the property purchase and ownership, and that you will pay a reasonable price for the house.

Luckily, there is chapter 7 bankruptcy that can help starting your new life. If you file a bankruptcy statement, you will be free from repaying your debts. This is certainly a great chance to start a new debt free life. However, before filing bankruptcy statement, you must completely understand that bankruptcy filing has consequences. You will not be able to apply for a new credit from a certain period of time after you file a bankruptcy.

If you still want to file a bankruptcy statement, you had better hire a bankruptcy attorney to assist you. Therefore, before filing a bankruptcy statement, you must do a survey to find the right bankruptcy attorney.

Why does writer require such Agreement? When a producer plans new movie production, he authorizes the script writer to submit ideas and concept of the storyline for the movie. As the writer is a creative person, he/she come out with new story line and presents his concepts to the studio for the new movie cast.

But, on few occasions, the producer misuse the ideas of the writer and share it with unauthorized persons or assign another writer to write the movie story, based on the same ideas, submitted by the original script writer. In order to prevent the producer from sharing his ideas with third parties, the script writer offers Confidentiality, Non-Disclosure and Non-Circumvention Agreement.

The signing of the Contract by the producer, legally binds him to the clauses in the agreement and he is compelled to safeguard the storyline concept of writer, by not disclosing or sharing it with another person. Thus, the contract preserves the confidential information of the writer from publication, sharing with third party, disclosure, misuse and dissemination.

The important points covered by the Contract are as follows:

• Confidentiality: Any creative idea or storyline concept given to the studio or producer is termed as confidential information.
• Non-Disclosure: The contract legally binds the parties to safeguard the confidential information by not disclosing or making it known to third persons, without prior permission of the script writer.
• Non-Circumvention: The storyline or creative ideas are submitted to the producer for the business deal and, if the deal is canceled then, neither party is authorized to use these confidential information or ideas for any other purpose.
• The agreement also bears the clauses, for the breach of the contract by either party. Any breach of the provisions in the contract by any of the signing party, will make them liable and responsible for the breach and, may draw penalty for the violation of the clauses.

Through such Agreement, the writer, as well as producer can protect their rights, confidential information and safeguard their interests.

Copyright, in its simplest term, refers to the rights bestowed through legislation to protect an individual or business from their work being unlawfully replicated. They bestow rights to the owner in relation to specific activities surrounding the use and communication of copyrighted material. To satisfy the eligibility criteria of being awarded a copyright, several conditions must be satisfied, including that the ‘work’ must fit into one of the set categories of copyrightable materials; it must be original; the individual(s) or businesses charged with creating must be qualified to do so; and the ‘work’ must be in some type of written form for verification processes. Copyright law covers a wide range of categories, including literary, musical, dramatic and artistic works; musical works and broadcasts; goods, services, business processes, brands and the like.

Of increasing importance in today’s knowledgeable economy is protecting your own and your business’s intellectual property (IP). New Zealand is party to the international TRIPS Agreement, which is a specific legislation relating to trade related aspects of intellectual property rights. The internet, and its ability to spread and disseminate information at ever increasing rates, and with increasing ease of access, has created an environment where protecting IP has never been so vital. The risk of releasing new ideas, products or designs without the proper intellectual property registration can result in infringements of existing copyright patents. In New Zealand, violating IP laws may result in large monetary demands to resolve the situation, while additional losses may be experienced in relation to the advertising and marketing activities surrounding the product or brand promotion. Furthermore, with the correct intellectual property protection in place, there is the risk that some other organisation may copy the idea, repackage the product or design, and earn market share and revenue from your work.

It is strongly recommended that thorough searches are conducted through patent and copyright databases prior to commitment of resources to develop and protect IP. This is to ensure that the concept being developed does not infringe on any current patents, as well as provide valuable information in relation to similar or competing ideas. This knowledge is then utilised to further develop the concept, idea or product to better satisfy the market being targeted and differentiate the concept to not only develop a unique selling proposition, but to differentiate the concept from other patented intellectual property.

This process can be time consuming, with those not familiar with New Zealand IP law and the tools to search for existing patents, running the risk of not accessing complete knowledge on the numbers and types of current copyrights which relate to the concept in question. The best way forward is to utilise a reputable and professional company which specialises in copyright applications. This will ensure that your intellectual remains under your ownership, while avoiding any expensive litigation which may result from copyright violations.

From an IP Management Software standpoint, the diversity of the IP docketing systems and processes that existed in different entities now requires alignment. And the problem is compounded by the need for fast implementation.

Such an IP management software integration effort must essentially aim at integrating or consolidating intellectual asset management processes, eliminating duplicate IP docketing software systems, standardizing and conversing business-critical IP asset data and developing an overall implementation roadmap.

Post merger and acquisition, the Top 5 success factors for a successful IP management system migration include:

Get your vision down on paper

IP management integration is a multifaceted, multivariate problem requiring a solution that can analyze, evaluate, compare, and integrate the IP asset data from each of the merging organizations’ core patent and trademark docketing management systems.

Establish key metrics to monitor your progress.

At a minimum, the plan must include:

• User Impact Analysis (including inventors, patent committee members, paralegals, internal and external patent counsels.
• Business process impact and consolidation of best practices.
• Risk assessment (including delays in recordation etc.)
• Data uniformity and data migration.
• Custom developments on the software for IP Management.
• Legacy docketing systems retirement.
• Testing and quality assurance
• Conversion and downtime impact
• Long-term support

Leverage Competencies

Too many patent departments have a very narrow focus during the post merger process, they focus too much on bibliographic and docketing data. There is no denying that docketing data is important, however don’t let that drive the integration process. Post merger, both departments need to demonstrate features and capabilities provided by their systems and look for opportunities. The “not invented here” thinking should be banned. Just because an idea is originated from outside the acquiring organization does not make it redundant. The focus should be on leveraging the competencies of both companies.

Get Your Timing Right

After the merger, the intellectual property rights of the acquired company need to be transferred into the name of the new owner in each jurisdiction where such rights exist. Timely recordal of a change of ownership is critical to protect the ongoing validity and enforcement of intellectual property rights. This can drive the need

for fast migration. If the acquired entity have significant IP assets, break the data in parts and import it in phases. Here is the sequence that can help you get there:

Start with bibliographic data. Follow this with docketing, then IP licenses, IP assertions and other transactions, and finally invention disclosures.

It is a good idea to validate your plan with the IT department. For example, before you plan on transferring the data for invention disclosures, IT must allow employees of acquired entity an ability to log into the new system to view their past invention disclosures and submit new ideas.

Prepare for Data Issues

It is not uncommon to find companies use a broad mix of hardware, operating systems and software with patchwork maintenance. Over time, a company’s IP management systems for invention disclosures, patent and trademark docketing, licensing and other related systems undergo incremental changes. This patchwork approach introduces data migration issues. Many times, inventor names are not matched against HR data. The products, technology areas and client groups need to be revised for the imported data. This requires a better understanding of data schema and tools for bulk update. It is better to do these changes prior to migrating the data into the final system.

Ongoing Training

During transition, it is important to have training materials ready and up to date. Clear and constant communication of vision, goals, and objectives can keep inventors, paralegals, patent committee members, In-house counsels and outside law firms on the same page and and help everyone to stay focused. It is important that all stakeholders are fully engaged and that training programs developed during integration planning are institutionalized.

In today’s technological world, many artists — especially bands — have taken to publishing their material online. With Facebook, YouTube, ReverbNation, and countless other places to reach new audiences, your music is in more jeopardy of being pirated than ever before. If you’ve copyrighted your material, you have the legal right to bring the offender to trial for improperly using your work without your permission — but taking someone to court requires legal fees, not to mention a significant draw on your time. What if you don’t think the improper use is worth your investment in a lawsuit? You may not wish to sue for damages; you may just want them to stop using your music. Luckily, you can notify the offender that you’re hip to their copyright infringement and avoid hefty legal fees in the process by sending a simple Cease and Desist letter.

You may have heard of Cease and Desist letters used in cases of harassment or slander. What you might not know is that the same principle can be applied to copyright piracy. True, a Cease and Desist letter is no substitute for suing someone for damages, but they can be remarkably effective.

A Cease and Desist letter typically contains the following:

• Copyright information showing you to be the legal owner of the material
• Specific infringement taking place (the website you found your song on, for instance)
• Demand for the material to be taken down
• Threat of legal action if your letter is ignored

The beauty of the Cease and Desist letter is in the last bullet point. You may not have any intention of suing anyone over the use of your work — but those responsible for the copyright infringement don’t know that. What they do know is that they’ve been found out; you’re now challenging them on something they’ve been doing successfully, up until now, under the radar. Now that they know you’re onto them, they may decide the risk of a potential legal entanglement is not one they are willing to take. Or, if you’re of a mind to give them the benefit of the doubt, they may not have realized that their use was infringement in any way. Your Cease and Desist letter unequivocally informs them of their misstep.

Sometimes all it takes it letting someone know you’re serious about your work. Sending a Cease and Desist letter costs you next to nothing; the recipient has no way of knowing if you’re bluffing, and if they gamble on your intentions, they could be making a very, very costly mistake.

An action to quiet title is more like a lawsuit which is filed in a court to claim ownership of a property. It is filed in a court which has jurisdiction over land disputes. It establishes an individual’s or a party’s claim towards real estate property against everyone and anyone which legally removes any challenges. It is used to get free of any claims against the property in question. Hence, a quiet title suit is also known as a legal suit to remove a cloud.

The person who files an action to quiet title is known as plaintiff. This lawsuit is also called a ‘ try title’ or ‘ trespass to try title’ at times. There is also a scenario where the action is used to recover wrongfully occupied land by a defendant. This way, it is known as ‘ejectment’ action. The difference in this type of legal claim is that it is filed to remove a tenant making it a case of ‘eviction action’ against him or her.

It might cover eviction after a legal foreclosure. Practically, both types of actions yield the same result – claiming a property, so these terms ‘action to quiet title’ and ‘ejectment action’ are used as synonymous in some places. The person against whom an ejectment action is filed is called respondent.

The owner of the land or property may file a quiet title action irrespective of whether the respondent is claiming a right towards possession of the property in question or not. It is like being on the safer side. The laws governing the action to quiet title change from state to state but basic legal details are almost similar.

The plaintiff will only succeed legally on the basis of the strength of his claim and the court doesn’t take into consideration the weakness of the respondent in question. The person filling the lawsuit bears the burden of proving his ownership of the property. The plaintiff will only succeed in removing the respondent’s claim (cloud) to the property if plaintiff’s interest remains valid and the respondent’s interest doesn’t hold ground.

When it comes to mortgage, the mortgagee keeps the ownership until the mortgage is paid. In this case, the mortgagee has to file the action to quiet title. Sooner or later, it is a major requirement in the real estate field as properties are owned and sold quite often which makes it even more difficult to know the real ownership towards a property.

Some courts have declined to exercise in rem jurisdiction where there is no associated registrar, registry, or other authority associated with the domain names. This is particularly important to keep in mind when making a determination about how best to enforce your intellectual property rights. There are two major methods for enforcing these rights;

One, the Anti-cybersquatting Protection Act (ACPA) enables litigation to be brought by the owner of a trademark against domain name registrants where the complainant can establish that the registrant;
(1) has a bad faith intent to profit from the mark,
(2) registers, traffics in, or uses a domain name,
(3) that is either identical or confusingly similar to a distinctive mark or is identical, confusingly similar or dilutive of a famous mark

Two, the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) has been uniformly integrated into the global market of the registration of domain names by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Importantly, domain registrars provide little if any oversight to make sure consumer registrants are not registering domain names that would infringe upon the rights of a trademark or brand owner. However, any entity registering a domain name automatically must represent and warrant that such registration does not impinge upon the rights of any third party (brand owner). Further, the UDRP ensures that all domain registrants agree to participate in an arbitration-like proceeding should any third party assert a claim against the domain name or registrant.

Any third party asserting a claim against a domain name or registrant must prove the following in order to be successful in a UDRP proceeding;

(1) The domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights;
(2) The registrant does not have any rights or legitimate interests in the domain name; and
(3) The registrant registered the domain name and is using it in “bad faith.”

The UDRP enables suit to be filed against a domain name, registered anywhere globally, because of the mandatory opt-in to arbitration when registering a domain name. Somewhat more situational is the ability to file a successful suit under the ACPA. This is because not all courts handle jurisdiction over foreign registered domain names equally. For instance, some state jurisdictions do not authorize an exercise of jurisdiction over domains where there is no registrant, registrar, registry or other authority associated with the domain names in that state.

The state of Nevada is among those jurisdictions. The recent ACPA lawsuit filed in Nevada by Andre Agassi and his wife, Steffi Graf, serves poignantly to illustrate this point. Deborah Logan wrote in her article “Moving Offshore Jurisdiction in an Internet World Without Borders” summarizing the World Class Tennis Stars’ attempt to derail 3rd party cybersquatters who had registered domain names with the Stars’ personal names;

“No registrar, registry or other authority associated with the domain names was located in Nevada, and the court found that no in rem jurisdiction could be exercised over the domain names. It appears that plaintiffs had intended to serve the complaint on the domain name registrars in the hope that the registrars would sign Registrar Certificates to be deposited with the district court in Nevada thereby establishing jurisdiction over the domain names. However, this strategy failed.”

However, it is important to note that this Nevada decision is not representative of a national stance on jurisdiction over foreign defendants. In contraposition to Nevada, there have been several court cases in recent years have held that US courts can still claim jurisdiction over a domain name regardless of the location of the registrant or domain name registrar.

It is also important to take note that any domain name or owner of a Website that has direct contact with individuals in the US (ex: stream of commerce- sale and export of items from a foreign source into the US), will likely be susceptible to personal jurisdiction in any US state.

To muddy up the waters further, sometimes the act of moving a domain name portfolio to a non-US registrar is viewed by the courts as evidence of bad faith, which when taken into account in giving the ruling can have a very damaging effect on a domain name or Website owner’s prospects of winning a UDRP or ACPA dispute.

To summarize, a UDRP proceeding likely always available against an infringing domain name. Suit filed under the ACPA is more likely to succeed in establishing some sort of jurisdiction over the defendant if the registrant, registrar, registry, or other authority associated with the domain is located within the same judicial district as the suit was filed in. Selling items to US consumers likely submits that Website or its owner to personal jurisdiction in the US. And, be wary of moving a domain portfolio overseas so as not to give evidence of bad faith.

The opportunities include, on one hand, possibilities to distribute and make digital content available to a global marketplace and therefore have access to an increased customer basis with additional revenue streams. On the other, reduced manufacturing and distribution costs help to increase the profit margins. Risks arise from the ease of unauthorised copying and distribution without the need to ask permission and pay relevant fees to digital content owners.

However, there are things that digital rights owners can do when entering into a digital licence to ensure that rights granted are not wider that those required:

1) identify the rights involved that would need to be licensed: these would generally include Copyright, Database Rights, Trade Marks and Image Rights;
2) add such flexibility in the licence to make it future proof; and
3) use technical means available to reinforce and protect the rights above.

1st Step:

Under the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) and Related Rights Regulations 2003, a copyright owner may prevent others from: Copying of a (substantial) part of the copyrighted work: even if the copying copy is not visible to the eye; Issuing copies to the public: which could for example be done automatically through a search engine caching activity; Renting or lending copies to the public; Performing, showing or playing in public; Communicating to the public: covering both the broadcast right and the “making available to the public” right, which is key for licensing digital rights and is applicable to any “on demand” service as long as the work is “accessible from a place and at a time individually chosen by [the user]“. Making an adaptation of the work or doing any of the above acts in relation to an adaptation of the work: such as for mobile phone screens, in which case, it may be appropriate for licensors to obtain a licence back of the adapted content. It may also be appropriate for licensors to have the right to pre-approve the adapted content, since cropping or re-configuring picture size may affect the quality of the picture.

2nd Step:

A licensor of rights under any bespoke digital licence, should include provisions in the digital content licence to guard against unwillingly granting rights for use on future-developed technologies. It is therefore important that the licence contains provisions that state that unless expressly granted, all rights are reserved and belong to the licensor; and also limit the licence to technology invented at the time of the grant.

3rd Step:

Licensors very often will look at implementing technical measures to protect against unauthorised copying and distributing of the content. Very often DRM is the technology that licensors they will look to since it is an offence to circumvent the DRM applied to any digital content and/or to manufacture, market and sell devices which carry out such circumvention.

However the use of DRM is not without inherent and user-facing problems. For example, it may create a permanent copyright (whereas normally copyright expires upon expiration of the relevant period), it may create competition concerns (since it may be used to divide markets), it restricts standard property rights (whereas content published on non-digital format may in certain circumstances be legally passed on or re-sold).

Getting just one clearance for a sample

The music that you want to use is protected by two copyrights. One copyright for the performance (what was recorded) and the other copyright is for the musical composition (the song, in no matter what form). The performance copyright will usually be owned by the record company (a long time ago, there were these profitable companies that sold music) that initially issued the recording. The copyright for the composition is usually owner by the song’s author or, more likely, the publisher (this often is a company that cannot hum a tune, but they sure can make money with the tune). So just because you got clearance from the owner of the song, you still need clearance from the owner of the recording. Things get even more complicated when the publishing is owned by more than one company. Then you have to strike a deal that pleases everyone.

Re-record your own sample

Maybe you don’t want to be bothered with getting clearance for a sample. You just want to put out a song and be done with it. So you think, “I can play by ear. I can easily figure out how they made that riff. Look, I learned how to slap the bass like this. That is all they are doing.” Not so fast. You might be creating a new recording (performance) but you are still probably using a copyrighted song. You cannot just bang the tune out on a different instrument, in a different style, while standing on your head.

You can play the tune yourself or hire someone to do that (there are companies specializing in that area) to avoid paying royalties on the recording, but you still will need to get clearance for the song. If you infringe the copyrighted song, you get to pay lawyers to fight off the publishers.

Change the speed of the recording or add some effects

No dice. This would be a “derivative work.” You derived your recording from the original recording. If you could just speed up or slow down a song to avoid infringing copyrights, then we would hear nothing but Chipmunk songs on the radio as stations would prefer to not pay for the songs that they play. Re-mixing an original work does not help you. You are still using the recording and the song. Again, if that was allowed, then the radio stations would play only re-mixes.

Only use a very small sample

People repeat things that they don’t know to be true, but sound good. So people love to rattle off some ideas that you can use a certain maximum number of bars of a song or recording or a certain number of notes. Well, if you believe that, go rob a bank and tell them that you only want to rob a very small amount of money.

Piggy-backing off of someone else’s sample clearance

You might hear a song everywhere, such as on the radio, TV, movies, shopping malls, and elsewhere. Just because everyone is using it, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t get a clearance or that you don’t need a clearance. Yes, if you speed on the street in a pack of other speeders, the cop can ticket only you. You will lose if your defense is “But everyone else was speeding faster than me.” Yes, it is not fair. However, life is not fair and as soon as you figure that out, you will be more at peace. A sample clearance clears the person permitted to use the sample. If you do not have a piece of paper clearing your use, you are not cleared, no matter if the clearance was given to your band mate, your friend, your neighbor, or anyone else. In one recent example, Rianna got permission to sample Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Something’” tune which chants, “mama-say mama-sa ma-ma-coo-sa.” However, MJ got that chant from a sample of another person’s recording, a Cameroonian musician named Manu Dibango. So when Rianna thought that she was all cleared when getting clearance for the MJ song, she found out through Manu Dibango’s lawsuit that she still needed to deal with him, as MJ’s song included a derivative sample (allegedly).