HHR New Media, Entertainment and Technology Group

Last Tuesday, U.S. Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011 which is intended to “establish a regulatory framework for the comprehensive protection of personal data for individuals under the aegis of the Federal Trade Commission.”  According to the bill, current laws at the state and federal level provide inadequate privacy protection for individuals and the Federal Government has “eschewed general commercial privacy laws in favor of industry self-regulation” which has largely been unenforceable and has provided insufficient privacy protections.  Continue Reading »

In conjunction with next week’s annual gathering of the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas, the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), a trade organization focues on commercial advancement of cloud computing, is holding a its “Content in the Cloud” conference.  Dan is participating in a panel entitled “The Impact of Cloud Computing on the Consumer Electronics and Telecommunications Industries,” along with senior executives from Comcast Media Center, Verizon Digital Media Services, Equilibrium, PacketExchange, Patriot Digital, ScreenPlay and Virtustream. 

Information on the conference is available here.

On April 7, the Digital HHR team will be presenting “App-endectomy: Removing the Mystery from the App Ecosystem“, the next in its on-going series of live, CLE-accredited webinars.

The explosive popularity of tablets, smartphones and other Internet-connected consumer devices has ushered in a new technology ecosystem driven by Apps. These self-contained software programs have not only provided the stakeholders involved with a compelling way to exploit everything from movies and games to magazines and newspapers, but have created a thriving new marketplace poised for ongoing, accelerated growth. While the stakeholders are many, the myriad of complex business and legal issues facing them are no less staggering in number. For publishers, content creators, App developers, content distributors, aggregators, storefront operators and service providers, the successful navigation of a rapidly evolving landscape of shifting terms and conditions, privacy regulations, content restrictions and corresponding business considerations across multiple devices and platforms has proven a daunting but essential exercise for leveraging the economic opportunities available.

In this CLE-accredited webinar, the DigitalHHR team will explore the critical business and legal challenges associated with the development, publication, distribution, sale and use of Apps. We will discuss the contours of in-App purchases, subscription-based offerings, and “freemium” models, as well as in-App advertising and App-based ad networks. We will analyze the evolving privacy terms and conditions associated with the use of Apps, and the corresponding laws, regulations and case law impacting end user data collection, disclosure and ownership. We will also address the terms and requirements promulgated by the various platform operators, including Apple, RIM (Blackberry) and Google (Android), and how they impact stakeholders’ participation across the different App environments.

The webinar will be held on Thursday, April 7, 2011 from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. EDT.

To register, please click here.