Program

Friday, October 26

Registration, Breakfast, and Welcome (8:30 - 9:00)

Panel One: In re Rightsholders (9:00 - 10:30) [Webcast Available Here]

Copyright ownership and licensing are perhaps more complicated today than at any other time in the history of publishing. This panel will discuss who holds what rights, how they are and aren't licensed, how we got here, and what can be done to clean up the mess.  

Topics:

  • Licensing under the Copyright Acts of 1909, 1976, and 2043
  • What contracts used to say about e-rights, and what they say now that we know better
  • Collecting societies: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems
  • Can bibliographic metadata be owned, and if so, who owns it?
  • Free and open-"source" licensing for books

Panelists: 

  • Eric Hellman, Unglue.it
  • Roy Kaufman, Copyright Clearance Center
  • Elizabeth Townsend-Gard, Tulane University
  • Eric Zohn, William Morris Endeavor
  • Robert Brauneis, George Washington University (moderator)

Break (10:30 - 11:00)

Panel Two: In re Bookstores (11:00 - 12:30) [Webcast Available Here] 

The business of bookselling used to be a quiet, patient, low-stress trade. Today's bookstores are online, on-demand, monopolized, bankrupt, struggling to find new models, or all of the above.  This panel will discuss how law has, does, might, and should regulate the bookstores of tomorrow.  

Topics:

  • Wholesale, agency, and contracts in restraint of trade
  • Who wins and who loses when bookstores go bankrupt
  • Legal support for new business models
  • Territorial sales in a borderless world

Panelists:

  • Niva Elkin-Koren, University of Haifa
  • Nico van Eijk, University of Amsterdam
  • Mark Patterson, Fordham University (moderator)
  • Christopher Sagers, Cleveland State University
  • Ariel Katz, University of Toronto

Lunch (12:30 - 1:30)

Panel Three: In re Libraries (1:30 - 3:00) [Webcast Available Here]

Some observers think libraries are obsolete. Others think the time is ripe to build a new Library of Alexandria. This panel will consider libraries' missions in light of the digital transition and ask what the legal system can do to give society the libraries it needs.

Topics:

  • The Devil Went Down to Georgia State: the law of e-reserves
  • What should a Digital Public Library of America look like?
  • Research, public service, and the struggles over libraries' missions in an age of shrinking budgets
  • Is there any hope of agreement on revising Section 108's library exceptions?
  • Electronic lending by libraries: threat, menace, or inevitabiity?

Panelists:

  • Jonathan Band, Policy Bandwidth
  • Caleb Crain, Author
  • Doron Weber, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  • Jessamyn West, Librarian.net
  • June Besek, Columbia Law School (moderator)

Break (3:00 - 3:30)

Panel Four: In re Readers (3:30 - 5:00) [ Webcast Available Here] 

Electronic reading has been described in terms of unlimited abundance and in terms of total control. Which of these views is utopian and which is dystopian depends on your point of view.  Perhaps somewhere in between lies a healthy middle ground.  This panel will discuss readers' rights and responsibilities in the age of digital books.

Topics:

  • Keeping 1984 from disappearing down the memory hole
  • How will disadvantaged communities plug into books?
  • Does first sale make sense for files?
  • What to do when your book is reading you
  • Digital texts and accessibility to the blind and print-disabled

Panelists:

  • Daniel Goldstein, Brown Goldstein Levy
  • Valerie Small Navarro, ACLU of California
  • Lateef Mtima, Howard University
  • Aaron Perzanowski, Wayne State University
  • Molly Land, New York Law School (moderator)

 

Saturday, October 27

Breakfast (8:30 - 9:00)

Panel Five: In re Backlist (9:00 - 10:30) [Webcast Available Here] 

Printed books have existed for more than five centuries.  Bringing this immense backlist into digital form presents both challenges and opportunities.  This panel will discuss the twinned problems of orphan works and mass digitization.

Topics:

  • The causes of and extent of the orphan works problem
  • The Google Books project and litigation
  • The future of physical and electronic archiving
  • Are the "digital humanities" an oxymoron?
  • Orphan works reforms, legitimate and otherwise

Panelists:

  • Jake Linford, Florida State University (moderator)
  • Matthew Sag, Loyola University Chicago
  • Pamela Samuelson, University of California at Berkeley
  • Jule Sigall, Microsoft

Break (10:30 - 11:00)

Panel Six: In re Everything (11:00 - 1:00) [Webcast Available Here] 

This panel steps back from the details to take a longer view of the history and future of books and law.  Participants will talk about long-term trends in publishing, culture, law, and technology, with an eye towards ensuring a harmonious future for them all.

Topics:

  • The storied past and uncertain future of print
  • Piracy over the centuries: hbas anything really changed?
  • The broken political economy of copyright
  • The publishing industry as it has been and still might become
  • Why books?

Panelists:

  • James Gleick, Author
  • Stanley N. Katz, Princeton University
  • Jessica Litman, University of Michigan
  • Stuart M. Shieber, Harvard University
  • John Thompson, University of Cambridge