Tech Companies Swimming In Lawsuits

conq writes "A new survey shows that the tech industry places third after healthcare and energy companies in the number of lawsuits it deals with. It states that an average tech company faces 42 lawsuits currently, more than the insurance industry!" From the article: "An average U.S. technology company currently faces 42 lawsuits vs. 37 lawsuit for an average company. The tech industry places third, after healthcare and energy companies, in the number of lawsuits it deals with ... Needless to say, that's quite expensive. Nearly a third of these companies spend more than 2% of their gross revenue on legal expenses, according to one of the largest surveys of corporate counsel in America."

Comments

My experience

[tjic]

I have no problem believing this.

I run Technical Video Rental, and I've had - literally - dozens of legal threats over the simple fact that I buy DVDs, then rent them out. Despite the fact that this is deeply settled case law, I've gotten everything from a legal cease-and-desist from one firm's CEO (who has a degree from Harvard Law School and was formerly Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources) to a threat to - ahem - anally rape me (from a guy who think's he's anonymous, because he doesn't know what website logs and IP addrs are).

I spend about $2,000 - $3,000 per month on attorney fees trying to explain to people what the First Sale Doctrine is.

This is money that could be spent growing the business, and delivering more interesting videos to my customers...but it gets squandered because so many folks (a) don't understand what the copyright law says; (b) don't understand that exposure increases sales (see also: MP3s and the RIAA).

Bah.

It'd be nice to spend more time doing business, instead of doing meta-business (lawsuits).