In-house counsel become digital natives

In the morning, in-house counsel heard from Beth Allegretti from Fox Entertainment, Joshua Bourne from FairWinds Partners and Elisabeth Stewart Bradley of Bristol-Myers Squibb about best practices for dealing with new domain names in a session moderated by David Taylor of Hogan Lovells. The interactive session then gave them a chance to share their own experiences of dealing with the challenges and opportunities offered by gTLDs.

Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the University of California - Irvine School of Law gave the keynote address after lunch, discussing First Amendment free speech protections in the Internet age. He explained how First Amendment jurisprudence is not keeping up with the Internet, adding that the small number of cases dealing with defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress do not provide a solid body of case law on which First Amendment and Internet jurisprudence can move forward.

The academic went on to discuss the ease with which people can now publish material on the Internet, adding that some material can be used to threaten or harass people. Seventy percent of those threatened or stalked on the Internet are women, said Chemerinsky, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides safe harbor to service providers of websites offering material such as so-called “revenge porn”. Only California has passed a law against such sites so far and he urged more states and perhaps Congress to take similar legislative action.

The final session of the program focused on some of the latest developments in advertising. Speakers Eric I. Baum of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Victoria Cushey of the Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association and Tom DeLuca of Insightpool discussed ways that businesses are using native advertising and branding in social media to connect with millennials, and explained how attorneys can help their clients navigate the regulatory landscape and avoid false advertising claims.