August 2010

Undue Influence an Issue in the DC Mayoral Race?

by Graham Martin on August 30, 2010 · 0 comments

The Washington Post recently published an editorial regarding the current accusations being flung at incumbent Washington DC mayor Adrian M. Fenty, many of which have to do with allegations of rigged contracts. The author picks up on an interesting contractual concept early in the editorial that is something with which we are all familiar, but very few of us could define: Undue Influence.

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Fine Print Friday: Comcast Cable

August 20, 2010

As by far the largest provider of digital media services in the country (including cable television, internet, and digital phone), Comcast has many Fine Print Friday readers as customers. Since we always just sign off on the agreement so we can watch our favorite shows and surf our favorite web sites, the question is: What did we agree to? This week’s Fine Print Friday will illuminate some of the more interesting provisions of your agreement with Comcast.

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Twitter’s Deceased User Policy

August 18, 2010

Twitter recently added a new policy addressing possibilities for the Twitter accounts of deceased users. Since I recently went through the rest of Twitter’s policies for Fine Print Friday, I thought it would be a good idea to briefly lay out the important points in their new new policy…in case you die.

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Paris Hilton $35m Breach of Contract: A Short Analysis

August 16, 2010

Paris Hilton was in the news again last week–this time because she is being sued by Hairtech International for not fulfilling her endorsement contract. As such a high-profile breach of contract situation, I thought I would use this opportunity to explore contract breaches, whether damages are appropriate, and what the result might be.

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Fine Print Friday: Netflix Watch Instantly

August 13, 2010

Netflix made headlines this week when it announced that it made a deal with Epix (a pay-TV service that is a joint venture between MGM, Lionsgate and Viacom Inc.’s Paramount) to stream movies from those studios, greatly increasing the size of their Watch Instantly library. This is great news for Netflix subscribers (including me), and likely means that Netflix will have a lot of new subscribers in the coming months. This development makes Netflix’s Watch Instantly policies ripe for Fine Print Friday.

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Force Majeure

August 9, 2010
Lightning_Storm_by_Karkit

Although I have already briefly addressed some common ways to get out of a contract, I haven’t touched on any of the more obscure methods for avoiding contractual obligations. So today I will be briefly exploring the concept of force majeure, and its related concept, Acts of God.

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Fine Print Friday: KinderCare Learning Centers

August 6, 2010

Find out what the parents of over 200,000 children in the United States have agreed to in this analysis of KinderCare’s Enrollment Agreement.

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