A conference in search of speakers: Copyright and Technology 2014!

Gregory is already preparing his abstract:
what are YOU waiting for?

Do you wish to contribute to the cutting-edge Copyright and Technology conference, which will be held at the beautiful London offices of ReedSmith LLP on 1 October 2014? 

Here's your chance!

Like last year [which was great fun], this blogger will be there. There will be a morning full of plenary sessions [including a keynote address by 1709 Blog friend Maria Martin-Prat, Head of Copyright Unit, Intellectual Property Directorate, Internal Market and Services, European Commission], after which the conference will separate into Technology and Law & Policy tracks.

Here are the panels for the Technology track:

• New Challenges and Responses to Online Piracy
  The proliferation of cyberlockers, cloud storage, and BitTorrent sites has led to new challenges for media companies looking to reduce the amount of infringing content stored online. Piracy monitoring services must keep up with new data storage and distribution schemes as well as new ways in which large-scale infringers can make content available. We’ll review some of the new challenges and responses to online piracy as well as the nature of demands on piracy monitoring services.
• Content Protection for 4K Video
  The next frontier in digital video, known as 4K, offers four times the pixels of HD. Although movie studios are capturing content in 4K, the ecosystems for delivering it to consumers are still being defined. Along with superior viewing experiences, 4K gives Hollywood an opportunity to call for redesigned content protection schemes that remedy some of the deficiencies of existing ones. In this session, we’ll discuss Hollywood’s objectives for 4K content protection and hear about some proposed solutions and their tradeoffs.
• Rights Expression Languages: Automating Communication of Content Rights
  The idea of machine-readable languages for expressing rights was introduced with some of the first DRM systems some time ago. But more recently, rights expression languages have found their ways into various interesting applications for conveying rights information among links in content value chains, to support commerce and licensing agreements efficiently and unambiguously. In this session, we’ll hear from organizations who are developing schemes to apply machine-readable rights expressions to digital images, news, and other forms of content.

Something that is more challenging than
addressing large-scale online infringements?

And here are the panel sessions for the Law and Policy track:

• Should Internet Service Providers Be Copyright Cops?
  Internet service providers (ISPs) are beginning to take responsibility for copyright infringement that occurs over their networks – whether voluntarily (as in the UK and USA) or by force of law (as in France and Austria). On this panel, we will discuss developments that have taken place both in courts and behind the scenes that chart the progress of the content industries in getting ISPs to take responsibility for the copyright behavior of their subscribers, and whether educational or punitive measures are necessary to reduce infringement online.
• Ripples Across the Pond: The Influence of American Copyright Reform
  The United States has begun the long journey of reviewing and reforming its Copyright Act, which dates back to 1976. Although opinions on how or whether to revise the law differ greatly, most agree that the law is a poor match for today’s rapid developments in digital content and services. Our panel of multi-national experts will speculate on the areas of the law that are most likely to change during the ensuing review process, and on how those changes will be likely to affect developments in law and technology in the UK, Europe, and beyond.
• Copyright and Personal Digital Property
  Recent legal activity throughout Europe has profound reverberations concerning citizens’ rights to the data they put up online – or that is put online on their behalf.  European courts have decided that people have certain rights to have their personal information removed from online services.  Meanwhile, the European Commission is reopening debate around a Notice-and-Action scheme for removal of copyrighted material online, similar to the U.S. Notice-and-Takedown regime, which some advocates claim impinges on free speech while others claim is ineffective at curbing infringement.  Are we headed toward an online society that respects information as personal property, and if so, is this a good idea?  We’ll discuss these issues.

At this point conference organiser Bill Rosenblatt is accepting proposals to chair or speak on any of these panels.  Deadline is Friday, 13 June.  Please email your proposal(s) to billr@giantstepsmts.com with the following information:

• Speaker’s name and full contact information
• Panel requested
• Chair or speaker request?
• Description of speaker’s experience or point of view on the panel subject
• Brief narrative bio of speaker
• Contact info of representative, if different from speaker

The agenda is subject to change, so if you have another idea for a panel do let Bill know!