How should my friend protect himself

I am in Utah just as a reference point

I have a friend who is starting a business that basically provides to services to create the appearence of a girlfriend/boyfriend. The person created is fictional, but the customer is sent emails, letters, text messages, etc. according to what services they purchased. The services are for entertainment purposes only (think psychic hotline in nature). My questions are these:

Should he be worried about getting sued?
What are potential areas of any law that this might infringe?
What can he do to protect himself?
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Assuming its like a dating site, can you brief what do you mean by " The person created is fictional, but the customer is sent emails, letters, text messages, etc" ?

So, is this like a virtual dating site? Like, a person will go there, sign up for an account and have a virtual significant other that sends them emails and such, even though that person doesn't really exist? Staying away from my personal sentiments (i.e. "who would pay for that?"), I'm going to neutrally address the question and say that I don't think anyone can get sued from it. While I'm no lawyer, it seems as though it's purely an entertainment service, like a virtual pet site.

I would consult a lawyer though about any types of entertainment licenses that are required in your state.

Also, my comments are purely those from a federal standpoint, because I only know the laws of the US (to an extent) and Pennsylvania. I don't know every state and local law, so there might be something in Utah that we don't know about.

My gut says that you friend would be okay legally (assuming he/she has any applicable licenses) but I'd consult a lawyer as soon as possible.

I believe this is not the first nor last "make believe girlfriend" business model. I wouldn't see any obvious legal problems with the model itself (getting the requisite licensing and such assumed you have handled). However, there's the potential for defamation if the make believe friend is made to appear to be a real world person. E.g. someone signs up for the service and then names a coworker as the person they are receiving messages from setting the appearance of an inter-office affair, warming up the rumor mill press and even worse if said make-believe person is married or seriously involved in the real world. You can see where this goes ... as long as it's 100% fictitious I believe you'd be fairly legally in the clear. He should probably consider a cell-phone-call service I think that's one of the more popular business models these days :-) And as mentioned above, forum advice is not the same as professional advice from an actual attorney.

You may also be subject to the same regulations as the television and movie industry. When they film in a specific location, they have to actually make sure there are at least 5 (I believe it's 5, it might be 3) people with that name or none at all in that location.

For example, if you make a movie that takes place in some city like, say, Houston, TX and that movie has a character named James McGregor or something, then there has to be at least 5 (or none at all) "James McGregor"s in Houston. If there are 2, you cannot use that character name.

Similarly, if you have a virtual girlfriend or something that is "from" Carson City, NV, then you may be subject to the same rules and regulations as if you were filming a movie in Carson City, NV.

Those are questions that an attorney can answer for you.

Dear,
It has not any legal infringement if u are not using the concept and model of any existing web site. As far as the legal boundage is concerned just mentioned it in your Term of Use statement and before login just get acceptance from the user. That's all.
Secondly the most closing case of you will be the Intellectual Copyright which can be removed from the seen by getting the user approval of sending his email and text msgs to other.

Best Regards,

Akhtar Rafiq
akhtar@websouls.com
http://www.websouls.com

Knowing a bit about startups... I'd say go for it. If you follow what other people said here, you can't do enough damage to get sued.

I mean what are you worth, asset wise? What is the company going to be worth, asset wise? A server or two? You have to look at all business as a risk vs reward scenario. There is little to no risk here, other than customers doing chargebacks on their credit cards. That's probably the biggest risk you face.

So you get sued.... you have nothing to lose until you are seeing huge revenue. Don't even think about that as a barrier to starting a company. The minute you see huge revenue, get an attorney fast. Everyone and their mother will try to take that revenue away from you. But... if you're a startup, you don't have to worry a bit. You have nothing for anyone to take.

So go for it!