Ted Stern leads Outside GC’s Technology Transactions & Digital Media practice.

Ted joined the firm in 2012 and brings over 30 years of legal and business experience. He works with companies of all sizes and in all industries, with a particular focus on commercial contracts in the areas of digital media, software and technology, e-commerce, and professional and consulting services.

He regularly handles the drafting and negotiation of a wide range of complex commercial agreements relating to the development, licensing, and distribution of technology services, including agreements involving:

• Technology services (e.g., SaaS/Cloud Services)
• Content and software licensing
• Advertising technology
• Online services and e-commerce
• Digital media (e.g., podcasting, music, publishing, video)
• Artificial intelligence
• Professional and consulting services

With broadly drafted AI provisions and exhibits now appearing in commercial agreements of every kind, Ted negotiates them for content owners seeking to limit how their content and data are used to train or power AI systems, and for service providers who need to maintain workable terms in order to keep delivering their services to customers.

His clients include SaaS providers, digital media companies, content creators and licensors, online services companies, media buying companies, advertising technology firms, e-commerce companies, podcasting companies, and professional and consulting services providers. At Outside GC, they include Cricket Media, Exceptional Network, Grand Circle, Hillel International, Incision, Infinitive, Jamloop, January Digital, Libsyn, Megaphone, Oxford Road, Peak Performance Solutions, SVT Robotics, Sonrai Security, Transcend Software, and Trilio.

Before joining Outside GC, Ted spent 14 years in both in-house legal and business development positions. He served as General Counsel and Head of Business Development at Envision EMI, an education company; the lead deal lawyer for Washington Post Digital, the online division of the Post; and General Counsel at ePals (now Cricket Media), an online education company and children’s publisher, where he handled all legal matters and also worked in business development.

Prior to ePals, Ted was the head licensing and technology lawyer at Amazon.com in Seattle, where he led the team supporting Amazon’s digital business units (Kindle, online music, publisher deals, online video), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and its search and online advertising unit. Before Amazon, Ted worked in a senior position within AOL’s legal department, where he led mobile and messaging initiatives, as well as working on numerous strategic technology deals. In addition to his deal work, Ted also worked on several new product launches at several of these companies, multiple acquisitions, numerous policy issues, and a few litigation matters over the course of his career.

Ted began his practice as an intellectual property and business associate at Baker & Hostetler and Fisher Wayland Cooper Leader & Zaragoza, representing major media, entertainment, sports, and technology companies. He graduated in 1994 from Columbia Law School in New York, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and graduated cum laude (top 10% of his class) in 1991 from Columbia College in New York with a B.A. in American History. Ted also attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., graduating among the top ten students in his class.

When not practicing law, Ted is often spending time with his son searching for great dim sum or attending classic car shows and concerts, or with his wife looking for the perfect lobster roll in Maine during the summer. Ted is an avid sports fan — playing and watching — and also an enthusiastic poker player. Ted lives in Washington, D.C.