Communications Law in the Digital Age 2024

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• With the 2018 quadrennial review completed, and 2022 still pending - what is the future of media ownership?
• Consumer Protection at the FCC: What’s next for all-In video pricing, blackouts, and targeting fees?
• After the election, what will the next FCC look like?
• FCC enforcement approach: faster and more aggressive? 
• What are the big-ticket items in the FCC’s future? USF contribution reform, impacts of streaming on broadcast and cable competition, and more

Speaker: Kathleen A. Kirby

Panel: Cristina Chou, Martha Heller, Gigi Sohn

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• Special presentation: A global news leader shares current examples of how it is using AI to transform journalism 
• How can other media organizations using AI to enhance reporting, streamline workflows, and reach audiences in new ways?  
• What do these use cases tell us about the legal challenges and future directions for AI in the media industry? 

Panel Leader: Joseph C. Gratz

Associated Press Presentation: Vince Tripodi

Panel: Stephanie Abrutyn, Jeremy Feigelson, Tom Rubin

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• Is a TikTok ban in the cards, and will a ban hold up to court scrutiny?  
• Can plaintiffs use products liability claims to circumvent Section 230 protections? 
• When Gmail flags political email as spam, do Section 230 protections apply?
• What is the future of constitutional challenges to state digital safety laws? 
• How does the UK Online Safety Act relate to Section 230?

Speaker: Jeff Kosseff

Panel Leader: Jeremy Feigelson

Panel: Erik Bierbauer, Ambika Kumar, Andy Mar

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• One year after the Marion County Register raid – has law enforcement’s treatment of the press improved? 
• Of drones and filmmaking – are courts narrowing the scope of protected newsgathering conduct? 
• How protected is the right to record after the demise of Project Veritas? 
• Is the prosecution of Julian Assange a one-off or a sign of more prosecutions to come? 
• What lessons can journalists and their lawyers learn from covering the latest rounds of protests? 
• What is the current status of the DOJ Guidelines and the federal shield law?
• Stopping government actors from rummaging through newsroom files: what recourse do media entities have when the plaintiff is the government? (Media Matters v. Patriot; Bryant v. Mississippi Today) 

Speaker: Thomas Leatherbury

Panel Leader: Kelli L. Sager

Panel: Dale M. Cohen, JT Morris, Mary-Rose Papandrea

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• TikTok’s ticking clock: what will come of the federal enforcers targeting TikTok for violations of COPPA and the FTC Act?
• Who's regulating whom? Actions ahead by the FTC and other agencies - and by the tech companies themselves
• Wiretapping law redux: how will the California class actions against third-party software and chat bots play out?  
• Watch out for the VPPA: Class actions mount against media companies for tracking streaming viewers - but can movie theaters rest easy? 
• Big BIPA developments: Whither class actions after business-friendly changes to the statute, and a settlement giving class members a stake in Clearview AI?
• Big ideas but big opposition to comprehensive federal privacy law: How many more states move to fill the gap left by congressional inaction?

Speaker: Jane E. Kirtley

Panel Leader: Jeremy Feigelson

Panel: Alan Butler, Olivier Sylvain

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• Access in high-profile trials: how are cases involving Donald Trump impacting the law? 
• Can agencies "claw back" records they inadvertently released in responding to requests under federal and state public records acts? 
• Has the momentum towards more electronic access of court proceedings stalled with the end of COVID lockdowns? 
• What can journalists do about government regulations and court orders that leave public employees speechless? 
• Are government gags of employees constitutional? 

Speaker: Katie Townsend

Panel Leader: Kelli L. Sager

Panel: George Freeman, James A. McLaughlin, Leita Walker

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• Did the Court's decision in NRA v. Vullo appropriately protect the NRA from government pressure on other regulated entities to stop doing business with the NRA? 
• Will the Court affirm the Fifth Circuit decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton allowing a state to mandate age verification for users of any website carrying substantial amounts of sexually explicit material? 
• Will term limits or other Supreme Court reform ever gain meaningful traction?  
• Can jawboning plaintiffs establish standing after Murthy v. Missouri? 

Speaker: RonNell Andersen Jones

Panel Leader: Kelli L. Sager

Panel: Floyd Abrams, Elie Mystal, Paul M. Smith, Sonja West

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• How are the media companies doing in their copyright lawsuits against the generative AI companies? 
• Warner Chappel v. Nealy: has SCOTUS erased time limits on damage recovery? 
• Recent Tattoo Cases: Hayden v. 2k Games and Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg 
• Where are we on fair use post-Warhol? Griner v. King and Philpot v. Independent Journal 
• The NO Fakes and No AI Fraud bills, and more: where are Congress and the statehouses heading on regulation of generative AI, digital replicas, deepfakes, political speech, and advertising?
• Should the law allow generative AI to train on people’s images and voices? Fake Drake, Scarlett Johanssen and more
• SCOTUS’ decision in Elster: what does it (and Warhol) mean for First Amendment review in ROP cases?

Speaker: Megan Bannigan

Panel Leader: Jeremy Feigelson

Panel: Robert Brauneis, Celia Muller, Jennifer L. Pariser, Jennifer Rothman

This new panel will explore how the seismic changes rocking the business of journalism are changing the work of media and communications lawyers. After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• Is advertising dead? Implications from the deaths of online newsrooms (Buzzfeed, Vice, etc.) and of jobs in traditional newsrooms 
• Is paying for content alive? Substack and its peers; the turnaround of the Atlantic; new bundling models (news + games + cooking + sports + . . .?); and more 
• What does it take legally to build a nonprofit newsroom, either from scratch or if converting from for-profit status? 
• What do the legal relationships between the social media platforms and the media/content companies look like today? 
• Will Congress or the state legislatures change the ballgame? California Journalism Preservation Act and other public policy options 

Panel Leader: Jeremy Feigelson

Panel: David Lat, Kristi Ramsay, Norberto Santana, Dick Tofel, Barbara Wall

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• How safe are journalists while reporting on elections, especially in the age of electoral disinformation? 
• How is the international media faring on access? The Al Jazeera case
• Is a country’s ban on a news organization a legitimate exercise of national sovereignty, or inappropriate censorship?
• The weaponization/criminalization of journalism: what is the latest on hostage taking and related tactics by nation states and threat actors?
• What are the potential implications of the soon to be adopted UN Cybercrime Convention and how it might apply to efforts to intimidate journalists and their sources across borders? 
• The next Evan Gershkovich: what lessons have been learned about securing release of arbitrarily detained journalists?

Speaker: Caoilfhionn Gallagher

Panel Leader: Mark Stephens

Panel: Karen Kaiser, David Kaye, Katharine Larsen, Randy L. Shapiro

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• What’s new with SLAPP laws in the U.S. and abroad?  
• Four more years: what has happened in Dominion, Smartmatic, Guiliani, and other post-2020 election lawsuits? 
• How are new damages strategies and massive judgments against high-profile defendants changing the nature of libel litigation?
• Palin v. New York Times and actual malice: Does the First Amendment require “proof of an author’s understanding as to meaning” in an implication case? 
• Should different standards apply to defamation claims depending on the technology used?  

Speaker: Jonathan R. Donnellan

Panel Leader: Kelli L. Sager

Panel: Michael Gottlieb, Thomas G. Hentoff, David McCraw, Laura Prather

After completing this session, participants will be able to answer the following questions:

• How is AI affecting document preparation, legal research, and even the creation of evidence?  
• A meeting with a prospective client can disqualify a lawyer from representing the adverse party, and that disqualification is imputed to the lawyer’s entire firm unless the lawyer takes “reasonable measures.” What does that mean and what does the lawyer need to do?  
• When a government lawyer moves to private practice, can they use information they acquired in their prior role? 
• If the opposing party inadvertently produces confidential documents, what are your ethical obligations? 
• May a lawyer include in his or her retention letter a provision prohibiting clients from recording their conversations without permission? Can the letter provide that a breach of the provision will result in immediate termination of the representation? 
• Does individual state licensing really do anything to promote lawyer competency and professional responsibility? Is it time to move to a nationwide law license? 

Panel Leader: Leonard Niehoff

Panel: Lucy A. Dalglish, Marcus Delgado, Jeffrey Glasser, Deanna K. Shullman