HHR New Media, Entertainment and Technology Group

It is no surprise that the move to the cloud is in full swing. New methods of content distribution and consumption, coupled with the widespread proliferation of IP-enabled consumer devices, are driving the public’s relentless desire for “any content anywhere”.  The success of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon on Demand, Flickr, and the emergence of novel content authentication and delivery standards like the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem’s (DECE) Ultraviolet exemplify the entertainment industry’s investment in and increased reliance on cloud-based distribution platforms and business models. Now, as music makes a similar move to the cloud with the recent emergence of Amazon CloudDrive, Apple’s iCloud and GoogleMusic, stakeholders across all forms of entertainment have officially ent ered the equation. But while cloud integration continues to gain speed in the foreground, a host of new legal issues are emerging in the background as the convergence of new cloud-based storage mechanisms and channels of distribution with entertainment content continues to usher in novel copyright questions for stakeholders to grapple with. At present, the legal questions currently surrounding digital lockers and the “cloudification” of entertainment content are focused primarily on the balance between copyright holders’ exclusive rights to reproduce and publicly perform their works and consumers and service providers ability to make lawful use of such content through emerging technologies, in each instance, without directly or secondarily infringing copyright holders’ rights. 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 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.

Dan will be speaking at the DCIA’s inaugural P2P and Cloud Media Summit in Santa Monica on May 6th. The summit is being held in conjunction with Digital Hollywood, one of the premier entertainment and technology industry conferences.

Dan will be part of a panel entitled “Global Perspective – Changing Rules for P2P and Cloud Computing”, which will discuss the key laws and regulations that P2P and cloud computing software developers and distributors need to comply with, the changes taking place in the regulatory environment affecting P2P and cloud-computing technologies, the impact of recent actions and rulings and other issues in the legal and policy arenas that might foster investment and commercial development of P2P and cloud computing. More information on registration is available on the DCIA’s website.

On a related note, the video from the DCIA’s March 9 conference has been posted.  At that conference, Dan participated in a  panel discussing the various business models utilized by P2P and cloud computing providers, including ad-supported, subscription, paid download and other innovative strategies.

As part of the Distributed Computing Association’s inaugural P2P market conference, Dan will be participating on a panel on P2P and Cloud Business Models.  The conference is being held on Tuesday, March 9 at the Cornell Club of New York in conjunction with Media.Summit 2010.  Registration information is available on DCIA’s site.