Monday, March 24, 2014

Consumer law and copyright conferences in April

Making the Fine Print Fair, Georgetown Law symposium, April 4

The Georgetown Consumer Law Society and Citizen Works are hosting a symposium, Making the Fine Print Fair, at Georgetown on April 4 from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.  From the Consumer Law & Policy Blog: Speakers include FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez; Ralph Nader; Georgetown Dean William Treanor; Associate Dean Gregory Klass; Professors David Vladeck, Adam Levitin; CL&P bloggers Deepak Gupta, Scott Michaelman, and Jeff Sovern; NACA Executive Director Ira Rheingold; Citizen Works Executive Director Theresa Amato; Professors Nancy Kim, Omri Ben-Shahar, Margaret Jane Radin, Florencia Marotta-Wurgler, Michael Rustad, and Lauren Willis; former Illinois Attorney General and Justice Neil Hartigan; PIRG's Ed Mierzwinski; Arent Fox's Marc L. Fleischaker, ALICE's Peter Bailon; Public Justice's Matt Wessler; columnist Bob Sullivan; Consumers Untion's George Slover and others.

And also:

18th Annual BCLT/BTLJ Symposium: The Next Great Copyright Act, held in Berkeley at the Claremont Hotel on April 3 and 4, 2014. In March of 2013 Maria Pallante, the Register of the U.S. Copyright Office, expressed her interest in working toward a comprehensive revision of U.S. copyright law, which she has optimistically called “the next great copyright act.”  Congressman Goodlatte, chair of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet of the House Judiciary Committee, has decided to explore this idea by holding a series of hearings about copyright reform issues.  The Department of Commerce has recently published a Green Paper about the need for some updates to U.S. copyright law.  Although the drafters of the Copyright Act of 1976 hoped that this legislation would prove to be flexible and forward-looking enough to serve the country well over time, consensus has been building in recent years that the current law needs an overhaul so that it is more comprehensible and provides a better framework for enabling copyright law to adapt to the challenges posed by emergent technologies.  This conference will bring together scholars, policymakers, and representatives of various stakeholder groups to consider what changes would make for a next great copyright act.

For more information, visit the website.

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