Operating a business, especially a business in the digital space, means that you need to be ready for anything. Many of the questions that your business will encounter have been answered thousands of times before, but some may be new. Having a legal advisor who understands your business and can think through any issue, no matter how nuanced and complicated, can make the difference in the success of your business. DigitaLegal has been providing business-minded advice to clients on new, nuanced and complicated corporate and commercial legal issues for years, with the goal of achieving practical results that work for your business.

The way people consume content is changing radically. The TV is no longer the sole content consumption device in many homes, with computers of all sizes, PCs, tablets and other handheld devices, also now being used to consume content. The TV itself is changing; many TVs now are Internet enabled, creating opportunity for new entrants into the content distribution business to deliver content through the TV’s Internet-enabled “output B” or through software applications available on the TV.

Also, users now have more content to choose from than ever, with many types of content (ranging from professional content produced and distributed by large studios and networks to user generated content (UGC)) being made available through the same user interface.

As a result, the content distribution landscape has never been more interesting, or more complicated. Negotiations around content distribution (whether for video content, images or data) often involve dizzying discussions about the scope of the grant of rights, business models and technologies, among other things.

Over the course of thousands of hours of negotiations specifically on the issue of distribution of content via the Internet to all types of devices, DigitaLegal has been at the forefront of this developing landscape, negotiating over-the-top (OTT), electronic-sell-through (EST) and video on demand (VOD) and “TV Everywhere” agreements with numerous professional content providers, including many major basic and premium network and basic cable providers, as well as agreements for the data and images needed to make digital products user-friendly.

At some point, virtually every digital business decides that using a vendor to help with the workload makes sense from a business perspective, and these service providers can be invaluable to help coding software, providing quality assurance (QA), user experience (UX), project management, product management, or other services. DigitaLegal can help you structure your professional services agreements to address the key issues, such as who owns the work product resulting from these engagements, and what each party is obligated to provide as part of these engagements.

At the end of the day, it is all about the bottom line, and a properly structured agreement can help you get that extra dollar of revenue you are looking for while maintaining a positive and productive relationship with your revenue partner. Whether you are looking to structure your deal on a cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-action (CPA) or cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis, DigitaLegal has been there, having negotiated agreements with major and minor search, advertising, e-commerce and other revenue partners.

It is important that both technology providers and the businesses they serve understand what services are to be provided, and on what terms.

DigitaLegal has advised both technology providers on outbound licensing and businesses utilizing third-party technologies on inbound licensing, and understands that the contractual provisions in your license, such as the scope of grant of rights, data protection, service level agreements (SLA’s), indemnity and use of open source code, can be key to the successful operation of your business.

If you are operating a digital business, there are a myriad of technologies needed to power and optimize your product. From analytics, to ad servers, to content distribution networks (CDN’s), to server farms, to content and data security, and other technologies. What happens if the technology is not available? If there is a security breach? If there is litigation relating to the software? These technologies power your business, and it is important to ensure that your contracts address those issues most important to you.

If your business provides software on a self-hosted or on software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis, DigitaLegal can provide assistance to establish the operational standards necessary so that your contractual terms can be competitive, and to determine what makes sense for you to offer in your license agreement based on industry trends and your specific product.