Calendar of Upcoming Events

On January 18, the world watched as more than 7,000 websites, including internet giants such as Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit, coordinated service blackouts, online protests, and petition-signing campaigns in order to galvanize public opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act (PIPA)--legislation proposed to expand the scope of U.S. law surrounding online infringement of copyrighted intellectual property. Supporters of the legislation argued that SOPA and PIPA would guard against copyright infringement on the internet, thus protecting various content-related industries and jobs. Opponents of the legislation asserted that provisions in both SOPA and PIPA would create liabilities for U.S.-based internet startups and entrepreneurs, stifle the growth of the internet industry, and threaten the First Amendment rights of internet users by moving the web towards unprecedented levels of censorship and government control.

 

Largely in response to these protests, both SOPA and PIPA were shelved in the House and the Senate. Despite this temporary resolution, the major issue underlying both SOPA and PIPA still remains: How can legislators and policymakers frame internet policy so that it protects intellectual property while ensuring that it does not violate the First Amendment and hinder growth and innovation in the internet industry?

 

Please join us for a panel discussion on the future of internet politics, policy, and digital copyright legislation, hosted by the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication. The discussion will include Craig Aaron, President and CEO of Free Press; Kartik Hosanagar, Associate Professor of Internet Commerce at the Wharton School; Stanley Pierre-Louis, Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property and Content Protection at Viacom Inc; Eric K. Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School; and Sascha Meinrath, Director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative. The discussion will be moderated by Monroe Price, Director of CGCS at Annenberg.

 

This event is being presented by the Spring 2012 CGCS Seminar Series, “Internet Policy Formation: Global Actors, Global Outcomes”