Search results for: Matt Landis

Are you thinking about investing in Pennsylvania real estate? If so, forming a Pennsylvania limited liability company (LLC) has numerous benefits that will save you time and money in the future.

Here are the top five reasons why the LLC has become the entity of choice for investment real estate ownership in Pennsylvania:

  1. Realty transfer tax implications and timing

If you plan on owning real estate in an LLC, timing is critical to avoid paying Pennsylvania’s realty transfer tax more than once. Realty transfer tax in Pennsylvania is 2% of the value of the real estate.

You should form the LLC prior to signing the agreement of sale, and the party entering into the agreement of sale should be the LLC, not one or more of the individuals’ names. The reason for this is that Pennsylvania’s realty transfer tax law provides that a taxable event includes an assignment of an agreement of sale, which would trigger transfer tax twice.

Further, if you buy the real estate in your individual name and later wish to transfer the property into an LLC that is owned by you, you would also be required to pay realty transfer tax on that transfer.

Creating an LLC from the outset would avoid paying more tax than you are legally required to pay under the above two common scenarios.

  1. Limited liability protection for owners of the LLC

The owners (known as members) of an LLC enjoy limited liability for the debts and obligations of the LLC and the negligent acts of other members. A member’s liability is limited to the amount of his or her investment in the LLC, and their personal assets would be protected in the event causing liability. Continue Reading Why (and When) You Should Consider an LLC for Real Estate Investments

What do recent headlines about tattoos, video games, and my favorite Katy Perry song have in common? The articles contain interesting lessons from the always complicated, but never dull (to me) world of intellectual property law. Let’s dive in:

Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos. That’s a Problem for Video Game Developers (The New York Times)

This article highlights some of the complexities of ownership and the right to use copyrightable works. Generally, despite being tattooed on someone’s body, the tattoo artist owns their creative illustrations. So what happens when video game developers recreate an NBA player’s likeness which includes their distinctive tattoos? You get a copyright infringement lawsuit over whether the video game developer has infringed upon the rights of the tattoo artist. For a more in-depth discussion of copyright, check out our article here.

Katy Perry and collaborators found guilty of copyright infringement over ‘Dark Horse’ (ABC News)

A jury in Los Angeles found that Katy Perry and her collaborators for the song “Dark Horse” copied the beat of a Christian rap song released in 2008 called “Joyful Noise”. In the link above, you can listen to each song and decide for yourself.

One of the elements of a copyright infringement claim is whether the work was copied, which can be proven by establishing the alleged infringer had access to the copyrighted work prior to the creation of the allegedly infringing work. In this case, despite Katy Perry’s testimony that she had never heard Joyful Noise, the plaintiffs persuasively argued that since early in her career, Perry was a Christian pop singer and due to the popularity of the track on YouTube and Spotify, Perry was likely to have heard the song.

Candy Factory hosts sweet free festival and shows off new expansion (LancasterOnline)

Tonight at 6:00 p.m., our favorite neighborhood coworking space, The Candy Factory, will host a community festival in celebration of nine years of coworking in Lancaster. The family-friendly festival will feature music, food, tours, and more.

Congratulations to Anne and the rest of the community at The Candy Factory!

Matt Landis is an attorney at Russell, Krafft & Gruber, LLP, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He received his law degree from Widener University Commonwealth School of Law and works regularly with business owners and entrepreneurs. Matt is one of the founding members of the RKG Tech Law Group.

Did you know that Pennsylvania law requires corporations and fictitious name registrations to “officially publish” advertisements in order to be effective? This requirement applies to domestic and foreign business corporations and nonprofit corporations, as well as fictitious names registered in Pennsylvania.

The advertising requirement is a nuance of entity formation that is often missed and could prove costly in the long run. For example, in the context of a corporation, failure to follow corporate formalities can be used as an argument to pierce the corporate veil, which could impose personal liability on the shareholders of the corporation. Continue Reading Advertising Requirements for Corporations and Fictitious Names in Pennsylvania

When “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin died on August 16, 2018, her family thought she died without a Will. There were many questions about what would happen to her estate and what Aretha’s wishes were upon her death.

In legal terms, it was believed that Aretha died intestate, or without a Will. You can read more about Pennsylvania’s intestate laws and how an estate is handled when someone dies without a Will here.

In many cases, when someone dies without a Will, it can cause controversy in an already grieving family. For Aretha Franklin, we can only assume that the vast size of her estate and the legacy attached to it left her heirs wondering Who’s Zoomin’ Who? Continue Reading Oh Me, Oh My It’s Time to Get Your Estate Plan in Order: Lessons from Aretha Franklin’s Death and Her Handwritten Wills

Copyright registration with the United States Copyright Office is a precondition to filing a copyright infringement lawsuit, however until earlier this month, there was a split as to when registration actually occurs. In Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that registration occurs when the Copyright Office registers a copyright. The alternative view was that registration occurs when a copyright owners submits a proper application to the Copyright Office. Therefore, you must have a copyright registration certificate from the Copyright Office before filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Continue Reading When Can You Sue for Copyright Infringement?

One of my primary fitness activities this past winter has been riding our Peloton bike. Workouts on the bike are always interesting because Peloton has numerous great instructors, varied ride types for all skill levels, and great music. You may have seen in the news earlier this week that Peloton is being sued for using music without permission in its video fitness classes. The lawsuit was filed by a group of several music publishing groups, claiming that Peloton does not have licenses in place for more than 1,000 songs owned or administered by the groups over a period of years.

As an attorney that works with both businesses that use others’ intellectual property and creators of intellectual property, music licensing and other types of intellectual property licensing is a commonly misunderstood issue. Songs are protected by copyright law, which grants exclusive rights to the owner of the song. If you don’t own the copyright, you need a license from the copyright holder in order to legally play their songs. Small businesses that play music for their customers are no exception to this rule; in fact, they are often the target of litigation when they ignore these obligations. Continue Reading Peloton’s Cautionary Tale: Music Licensing and Your Business

This is the final installment in a three-part series about data breaches and the requirements of Pennsylvania law relating to data breach notification. The previous posts in this series are: Doing Business in 2019? You Should Be Thinking About Data Security; and When Does a Data Breach Require Disclosure Under Pennsylvania’s Data Breach Notification Act?.

After determining that a data breach has occurred which triggers notification under the Pennsylvania Breach of Personal Information Notification Act, the next steps are to comply with the applicable notification requirements.

Notification Requirements

If a breach requiring notification has occurred, notice in a clear and conspicuous manner may be made by any of the following methods:

  1. Written notice to the individual’s last known home address;
  2. Telephone notice if the individual can reasonably be expected to receive it; or
  3. Email notice, if a prior business relationship exists.

Notice must be given “without unreasonable delay”, subject to a delay requested by law enforcement. Built into the reasonableness requirement for timing is an entity’s ability to take measures necessary to determine the scope of the breach and to restore the reasonable integrity of the data system.

Potential Penalties

Failure to comply with the Breach of Personal Information Notification Act is a violation of the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, which allows the Pennsylvania Attorney General to seek an injunction, restitution, and civil penalties of up to $3,000 for each willful violation.

Additional Things to Prepare For

In addition to these legal requirements, make sure you also take practical steps to prepare for any customer questions or backlash. Make sure your employees know about the breach and what to say if a customer asks them. Consider getting out in front by issuing statements that not only satisfy the letter of the law, but also emphasize what you’ve done to protect them. In many cases you can prevent an unfortunate situation from becoming worse by thinking through the public relations aspects of a breach at the same time you handle the legal requirements.

Think your business has suffered from a data breach? You should immediately consult with your IT professionals to get as much information about the breach as you can and to prevent further information from being compromised. Then contact your legal counsel to determine your notification obligations under Pennsylvania law and other applicable laws.

Matt Landis is an attorney at Russell, Krafft & Gruber, LLP, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He received his law degree from Widener University Commonwealth School of Law and works regularly with business owners and entrepreneurs. Matt is one of the founding members of the RKG Tech Law Group.

This is part two of a three-part series about data breaches and the requirements of Pennsylvania law relating to data breach notification. Part one of this series was Doing Business in 2019? You Should Be Thinking About Data Security.

 The first post in this series made the case for why you should take data security seriously. Otherwise, you’ll need to worry about the daunting task of complying with a multitude of data breach notification laws and the public relations nightmare of being the next company that revealed its customers’ personal information.

But as the saying goes: the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Continue Reading When Does a Data Breach Require Disclosure Under Pennsylvania’s Data Breach Notification Act?

This is part one of a three-part series about data breaches and the requirements of Pennsylvania law relating to data breach notification.

If the events of the past few years are any indication, the scale and frequency of data breaches will only increase in 2019. According to Experian’s 2019 Data Breach Industry Forecast, in the first half of 2018, the number of records compromised exceeded the total number of breached records for all of 2017.

In the event of a data breach, legal compliance obligations can be daunting, particularly if your business stores personally identifiable information for residents of other states. All 50 states have data breach notification laws, each of which is slightly different. And do you store information about residents of the EU? Then you may need to worry about how the GDPR applies. Continue Reading Doing Business in 2019? You Should Be Thinking About Data Security

Siri’s been around since 2010, but despite my borderline obsession with Apple products and services, my use of Siri has been limited until fairly recently. I think my increased usage is likely due to several factors, including Siri’s recent improvements, a Series 4 Apple Watch that allows Siri to speak back to me, and voice assistant technology reaching a tipping point for widespread adoption, particularly with the Amazon Alexa and Google Home product ecosystems. Continue Reading Hey Siri, Remind Me To…