Why You Need This Primer

You will probably enjoy reading the Primer if you are a law student or reasonably savvy Internet user, but if you are a small business person looking to make their way in Internet commerce, you need this book. In it are many secrets that are no secret to the big players in business. These things are taught ad nauseum in law and business school. They are the stuff of common conversation among people on the way up in online business, and there is nothing magic about them.

We start with creating a business. I liken a business to a boat, because a boat can be operated by a single person, and requires strength, skill and initiative to pilot safely. I discuss sole proprietorships and partnerships briefly, primarily to note their disadvantage. Then I explain how to build a basic boat, a business form called a Limited Liability Company. Everyone should create at least one company, like everyone should publish at least one website, just to get over the mystery of it.

Why create a company? To establish a legal entity separate from yourself, that can hold bank accounts, accumulate property, borrow money, sell shares in itself, and even go bankrupt. Mainly, it all comes down to accumulating and disposing of property. Money is property, as are real estate, hardware, software and intellectual properties like trademarks, copyrights and patents. So we explore how to acquire, retain and protect your ownership of all manner of property. We eliminate the mystery from the subject of “intellectual property,” probably the most intimidating legal term ever invented. The Primer will help give you a basic grasp of the issues, which is what you need at the beginning. Later, you will discover what you need to know about in detail, and what you can leave to the experts. In the process, you can learn to make informed legal decisions about your property.

After discussing the acquisition and retention of property as your central business strategy, I move on to what I think are the hottest areas of the online media law universe. Like Carl Sagan, who showed us the giants of the solar system, the comets, the quasars, pulsars, black holes and galactic centers, I conduct a tour through the areas of the law that are generating the most legal change, like copyright law, the DMCA, anti-cybersquatting law, California unfair business practices, the Lanham Trademark Act, and California privacy law. We look at what the FTC is doing, and not doing, to regulate deceptive practices on the Internet, and examine the COPPA requirements for websites that collect information from children. Then we move on to the two hottest fields of business activity — online gambling and adult content — providing basic, useful information to guide online entrepreneurs with respect to these potentially profitable and definitely risky fields of business endeavor.

We're going to live in the future. In the Internet. The laws that govern information will govern you, and all the most important things about you. Will privacy be, indeed, a thing of the past? Will cash disappear? Will a list of domain names be worth more than a carload of gold? Let's go see.

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