HHR New Media, Entertainment and Technology Group

The French online anti-piracy law took effect in 2009 and provides for a graduated response as a means to combat online piracy. The law created an administrative agency, Hadopi, that may. at the request of sworn agents designated by professional syndicates, rights collecting societies and the French Cinematographic Center, send warnings to alleged freeloaders which, if unsuccessful in stopping the activity, can lead to criminal prosecution based on the agency’s findings.

After years of discussion and ongoing debate, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) will begin accepting applications for new generic Top-Level Domains (“gTLDs”) beginning on January 12, 2012.  Up until now, only 22 unrestricted gTLDs have existed across the Internet, among the most popular and well known being .com, .org, and .net.  With this new initiative, ICANN is establishing a process for companies and organizations to apply for new gTLD extensions, which may consist of any term or word, from company, firm or individual names and trademarks (e.g., .digitalhhr, .hugheshubbard, .josel, etc.), to generic categories of goods and services (e.g., law, .music, .baldguys, etc.).   Continue Reading »

In one of the latest advances in what has been called “a technological arms race between tracking companies and people who seek not to be monitored,” device fingerprinting, a technology originally developed to prevent software piracy and credit card fraud, appears set to become a powerful new tool for online marketers.  But recent calls to increase consumer control of personal information will likely impact how device fingerprinting technologies are integrated into marketing efforts and may slow its widespread adoption. Continue Reading »

On December 9, the DigitalHHR team will be presenting “Forecast: Entertainment in the Cloud”, the next in its on-going series of live, CLE-accredited webinars.  

As the public’s demand for “any content anywhere” grows, entertainment, media and technology companies are turning to the cloud for innovative ways to distribute and monetize content. Through initiatives like digital lockers, streaming to mobile apps, progressive downloading to tablet devices, and other forms of cloud-based storage and distribution, stakeholders are exploring new business models and ways to innovate without compromising the value of content or jeopardizing the rights of content owners to control how their content is consumed by the ultimate end user.

In this CLE-accredited Webinar, we will focus on the critical legal and business issues raised by the expansion of cloud computing and its impact on the distribution and consumption of entertainment content. We will analyze how cloud computing has led to new methods of distribution that give rise to an increased threat of copyright infringement and the recent case law impacting the cloud computing landscape. We will discuss new digital rights management tools, methods of end user, subscriber and purchase authentication. We will explore how stakeholders can balance complying with evolving standards, laws and regulations with the need to exploit new technological advancements that lead to improved services and enhanced end user experiences.

Our New Media, Entertainment and Technology Group at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed will be joined by our UK-based colleagues from the international Technology and Media focused law firm Taylor Wessing LLP. Taylor Wessing will address some key international and European issues that impact cloud models. These issues will include jurisdictional risks, different rights spanning different territories, advertising laws, collecting societies, the European laws on privacy, cookies and liability for cloud platform providers, as well as challenges related to format shifting/uploading consumers’ existing content into the cloud.

The webinar will be held on Thursday, December 9, 2010 from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. EST.  To register, please click here.

The Entertainment Consumers Association (“ECA”) has retained Hughes Hubbard and the Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy Clinic to assist it in submission of an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court in a case with potentially wide-ranging impact on the video game industry.  The case, Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, involves a California law that regulates the sale of  video games by imposing a labeling requirement based on content and prohibiting the rental or sale of certain games to minors.  The ECA opposes the Act on the ground that video games are free speech protected by the First Amendment.  Continue Reading »