February 28: Webcast + Cleveland - From Product to Service: Digitization of Culture

The struggling music industry is still trying to maintain and uphold (though gradually conceding that it cannot) a product-based industry, but is evolving into what it is destined to become and already is: a service-based industry. Now that bandwidth has involved, the film industry faces the same challenges. And, of course, now the newspaper industry faces the same challenges: DIGITIZATION. It is particularly important that we have viable newspapers in this country as they are the foundations of democracy. But how does a newspaper support good reporting in an age where the bulk of revenue has all but eroded, i.e.,

• Classified ad revenue? 
• Will Jeff Bezos do for the newspaper industry what Steve Jobs did for the music industry? 
• Will Bezos figure it out? 
• Did Jobs figure it out? 
• What will happen to copyright law as we know it? 

17 USC § 106 enumerates the “bundle” of rights in the Copyright Act. As a result, the music industry is divided into many different sectors: the public performance rights sector, the mechanical rights sector, the sound recording sector, the synchronization rights sector, the mash-up sector, and on and on – making it very difficult for anyone to license music. And antitrust law prevents the different sectors from working together. Does the Copyright Act need to be totally revamped? How can we ensure that high quality newspaper reporting and publishing continues in the face of declining revenues? This symposium will examine the digitization of not only the music industry, but film and news and its impact on copyright law.

Title:
From Product to Service: Digitization of Culture
Arthur W. Fiske Memorial Lecture
When/Where:
February 28, 2014
8:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M.
Moot Courtroom (A59)
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
11075 East Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44106-7148
Also Webcast
Speaker:

• Mark E. Avsec is a partner and Vice-Chair of the Innovations, Information Technology & Intellectual Property (3iP) Practice Group of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff, LLP. Mr. Avsec has also practiced extensively with the Corporate and Securities Practice Group. A copyright, trademark, and media lawyer by trade, and a litigator and business attorney, he focuses his practice on consumer products, music, and other entertainment-related licensing matters, as well as mobile commerce and “old” and “new” media issues. Mr. Avsec provides general legal support to various types of museums, technology, consumer products, media, music, film, software, creative content, and content distribution companies. His practice includes copyright, trademark, and trade dress litigation, copyright and trademark prosecution, fair use and rights of publicity/privacy counseling, celebrity endorsements, and an expertise in privacy and data security compliance. Before becoming a lawyer, Mr. Avsec earned a living as a studio musician, producer and songwriter, writing over 500 songs and producing or performing on more than 35 albums for, among other artists, Carlos Santana (“Angel Love”), Bon Jovi (“She Don’t Know Me”), Donnie Iris (“Ah! Leah!” and “Love Is Like A Rock”), Mason Ruffner (“Gypsy Blood”) and Wild Cherry (“Play That Funky Music, White Boy”).
• Ken Antonelli. Over the course of the last sixteen years, Ken has been President / CEO of three different music industry companies, overseeing the daily operations of all aspects of each company, with full P&L responsibility. Most recently with “indy” company ICON MES. Antonelli’s reputation as a skilled innovator, a highly motivated and focused executive, strong marketing planner, communicator and team builder is widely known throughout the industry. His tenure at the Sony-owned RED Distribution produced the highest yearly billing and profit in the company’s history as well as pioneered the “up-streaming / down-streaming” mechanism which played a pivotal role in the sale of more than 20 million units worldwide, on a variety of multi-formatted artists who have maintained viable, enduring careers.  Prior to the last sixteen years, during the 20 career years preceding,Antonelli held a number of key positions including in A&R, sales, distribution, marketing, finance, artist development, strategic planning, and acquisition. He has built extensive expertise and keen insight and combined them with forward thinking ideas and strategies to meet the challenges and demands of today’s fast changing marketplace, while at the same time never keeping his love for music and the role it plays in people’s lives in the background.
• Glenn Gamboa is Newsday's chief pop music critic and has been writing about music for more than 25 years. A winner of several national awards, he headed the paper's team chronicling the impact of hip-hop in America, a project that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005.
• Patricia Motta is Assistant General Counsel and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel at the American Greetings Corporation. Ms. Motta manages for American Greeting all aspects of its intellectual property counseling, transactions, and procurement, with an emphasis on patent portfolio strategy and management, trademark clearance searching, international and domestic trademark prosecution, protection of trade dress, U.S. and foreign customs protection and enforcement, trademark and copyright enforcement, structuring and negotiating intellectual property licenses, unfair competition, marketing review (including all forms of and policies for social media and social networking), promotions, and false advertising, and a wide variety of Internet issues, including privacy, domain name, and key word disputes. Prior to joining American Greetings, Ms. Motta was an associate attorney with the intellectual property practice group at Michael Best & Friedrich in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she represented numerous Fortune 500 companies and small entities based in jurisdictions around the world in a wide variety of intellectual property related matters.
• Bruce Winges has been editor and vice president of the Akron Beacon Journal since May 2007. Winges has held a variety of editing and management positions since he joined the Beacon Journal in 1982. He has worked on the news and metro desks and has been an assistant managing editor, night managing editor and deputy managing editor. He led a building-wide transition team when the Beacon Journal changed ownership in 2006. He serves on the Ohio Newspaper Association Board of Trustees, the Ohio Associated Press Managing Editors Board of Directors and Kent State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication Professional Advisory Board. He is past president of the Akron Press Club. Winges serves on the board of the Cuyahoga Valley Photographic Society.
• Erica Lazzaro is OverDrive’s General Counsel and Director of Publisher Services. She leads OverDrive's legal, licensing, content acquisition and business development efforts, helping publishers worldwide find success with multichannel digital distribution to libraries, schools and booksellers. Erica also works closely with OverDrive’s executive team on strategic relationships and has negotiated agreements with leading publishers and content providers across digital media types including movie studios and record labels, Amazon, and Pottermore.

By:
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Credit:
2.75 hours of CLE credit available, pending approval
Cost:
Free and open to the public. Pre-registration required.

More Information and Registration

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