Today’s development and complexity of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) have provided major changes in the social structure and corporate activities, and have raised new legal issues that we never faced before across all legal fields.
For example, in this field, many companies are starting new businesses on the Internet by, for example, delivering and sharing videos and music targeted at general consumers, launching websites for business-to-consumer (B-to-C) sale of goods and commencing new cloud services for enterprises; therefore, opportunities to provide advice on such businesses are rapidly increasing. Another characteristic of this field is that we provide advice not only to Japanese companies but also to many foreign companies that plan to provide services to Japan from abroad.
In such cases, it is necessary to have cross-sectional knowledge and experience such as knowledge and experience with respect to treatment and agreement of intellectual property rights; capability to provide advice on handling personal information and privacy and to review rules and regulations therefor; and ability to respond to special laws such as the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations and the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions. Our firm has such knowledge and experience and, moreover, we can provide practical support to corporations in their activities in commencing new businesses by, for example, advising on the points that are likely to get a flood of critical comments on the Internet even though they have no legal problem or are legally undefined.
Also, in recent years, the need to manage rights violations on the Internet is also increasing. For example, there has been an increase in the number of cases of leakage and Internet publication of trade secret and personal information that had been received from customers and cases of defamation written on the Internet. Our firm supports our clients in, among other services, negotiations for disclosure of sender’s identification information and removal of comments and/or articles posted on the Internet, filing of application for provisional disposition or regular lawsuit and providing advice on technical preventive measures. Conversely, companies that provide IT services are forced to frequently deal with such negotiations, provisional dispositions, etc., and we also support these companies in such matters.
Concurrently with the new issues on the Internet described above, conventional issues, etc. involving the mass media are still occurring. Our firm also has a great deal of experience in handling cases of defamation by magazine articles, portrait rights and publicity rights.