Many e-commerce business owners spend hours perfecting their products, designing their websites, and building their brands. Then the legal pages get added five minutes before launch. Unfortunately, the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy become an afterthought. They might be copied from another website or generated by a free template. Your legal policies may not…
In June, we published a blog article about auto-renewals in e-commerce. Since then, Jonathan Phillips has fleshed out the topic and submitted it to the Illinois State Bar Association for publishing. The Intellectual Property Section Council just published an article on auto-renewals and related topics with Jonathan’s co-authors Steven Baron and Leah Hall. The article,…
Phillips & Bathke, P.C. recently assisted an Etsy seller whose competition went further than it should. Our client’s competitor accused our client of copyright infringement. The competitor submitted DMCA takedown notices to Etsy—delisting our client’s products. After review of the case, we determined an efficient, but aggressive approach would likely be successful. After discovery closed,…
Sellers on Amazon, e-Bay, Alibaba, Etsy, and other platforms have to deal with bad reviews. Some bad reviews are honest opinions of the customer. Others are downright false. Sellers might be at a loss of what to do when a customer or platform refuses to remove content. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh…
Many e-commerce providers utilize automatically renewing agreements. That is, their contracts continue for a specified period unless the consumer cancels them before the end of the term. These contracts are common for popular for subscription-based services, such as streaming media, software, and meal kits. If your business uses this model, or intends to, you should…
If you are reading this article, you likely received an email from your online service provider (Amazon, Etsy, Ebay, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) that a DMCA takedown notice was filed against you claiming that one of your product listings or posts infringed another’s copyright protected work. You review the notice but cannot understand how or…
The latest season of the Netflix series Black Mirror was released this last week. It did not disappoint, especially the first episode: JOAN IS AWFUL. This episode explores a dystopian world where an online service provider’s terms of service (the fictional STREAMBERRY streaming service) and an actor’s contract terms result in dire consequences for the…
Phillips & Bathke, P.C. has closed its law practice and is no longer serving clients. We are sincerely grateful for the clients, colleagues, and communities we have been privileged to serve.
Moving forward, our contact information is as follows:
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