47 U.S.C. § 230: a 15 Year Retrospective

March 4, 2011

Time: 9:00am - 5:30pm
The Mission Room, Benson Center

Speaker Bios

 Conference Resources

Videos from the Conference

Photos from the Conference

Kenneth Zeran Commentary

 View the conference flyer here

Event co-sponsors include Harvard Law School's Berkman Center, Stanford Law School’s Law, Science & Technology program, the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, the New York Law School’s Institute for Information Law and Policy, the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Media Law Resource Center, the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association and the SF Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel.

47 USC §230 is widely regarded as the most important Internet-specific law. This symposium will celebrate the 15 year anniversary of Congress' enactment of Section 230. The symposium will bring together some of the key historical figures involved in the development of Section 230 to talk about how we got where we are. The symposium also will discuss some of the latest cutting-edge research about Section 230 issues. We expect this event will be the largest gathering of Section 230 practitioners and scholars to date. 

Agenda

 (To view a pdf version, click here)

9:00 Introduction

9:10 Historical perspectives

• Special video conference with Senator Wyden
• Facilitator: Jason Schultz, Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley Law
• Chris Cox, Partner, Bingham McCutchen LLP

9:50 Break

10:00 In-House Counsels’ perspectives

• Moderator: Sandra Baron, Executive Director, Media Law Resource Center
• Kai Falkenberg, Editorial Counsel, Forbes
• Alex Macgillivray, General Counsel, Twitter
• Laura Pirri, Senior Counsel, Linden Lab (Second Life)
• Laurence Wilson, General Counsel, Yelp

11:20 Break

11:30 Legislative perspectives

• Facilitator:  Declan McCullagh, CNET
• Representative Zoe Lofgren (16th District, California) 

12:00 Lunch

• 12:40: Kenneth Zeran, plaintiff in Zeran v. America Online (4th Cir. 1997)

1:15 Break

1:30 Litigators’ perspectives

• Moderator: Colette Vogele, Senior Attorney, Microsoft Corp.
• Patrick Carome, Partner, WilmerHale
• Cindy Cohn, Legal Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Paul Alan Levy, Public Citizen
• Mike Rhodes, Partner, Cooley LLP
• Maria Crimi Speth, Shareholder, Jaburg & Wilk

3:00 Break

3:30 Perspectives from the Bench

• Facilitator:  Mark Lemley, Stanford Law School
• Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

4:00 Academics’ perspectives

• Moderator: Ann Bartow, University of South Carolina, School of Law
• David Ardia, Citizen Media Law Project/Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society
• Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University School of Law
• Nancy Kim, Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University (visiting)/California Western School of Law
• Felix Wu, Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University

5:20 Closing Remarks and Reception