Law Lab: (Legally) on the Safe Side
Publishing on the web can unfortunately mean stumbling onto thin ice, legally speaking. Copyright law, cease and desist, surreptitious advertising – those are just some of the keywords and stumbling blocks. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we’ll have experts on hand in our Law Lab at the re:publica TEN to help explain and make sure you stay on the safe side (legally).
Things kick off on Tuesday morning on the T Stage with “Surreptitious advertising – anything goes… right?” with Ramak Molavi and Thomas Schwenke. Surreptitious advertising is prohibited, but is also financially profitable. The speakers will outline the legal grey zones in the session, as a basis for an economic cost-benefit analysis, and explain the dangers of legal prosecution and the costs of cease and desist notices. After the session on surreptitious advertising, we have the “Crash course in personality rights” by Ansgar Koreng and Roman Portack. Topic of the session: What should you keep in mind if what you’re publishing on the internet is not just about your cat, but something that involves other people? The last session of the Law Lab on Tuesday comes from Ulrich Kerner, who will be highlighting freedom of the press in his talk “Bloggers between freedom of the press and police measures”. What exactly does the freedom of press guaranteed in the German constitution actually cover, and just as importantly: Does freedom of press also count for alternative media, meaning blogs and podcasts?
Wednesday morning will be all about copyright law, cease and desist notices, and photo copyright. First off, Adrian Schneider will explain “Copyright law in a nutshell”. Emails, Instagram posts, videos on YouTube: almost everything we communicate with and consume on a daily basis can be protected by copyright. Copyright law should therefore not be a specialist area of knowledge, but rather general knowledge. This session will cover the basics of copyright law, explaining them in an easy, understandable and entertaining fashion. Carola Sieling and Miriam Ballhausen will follow Adrian on the T Stage: Why can’t I use any photo that can be freely downloaded off the internet? Why do I need a license? What is a license, and what should I do if I’ve received a cease and desist letter? These questions and many more will be clarified in their session “A picture says more than a 1000 words: Photo copyright and cease and desist notices”.
The Law Lab is conceived and curated by the lawyers Henning Krieg and Thorsten Feldmann, whom the re:publica visitors will know from their “Annual Review of Social Media Law”. Krieg and Feldmann have been giving an annual review of the latest developments in social media law since 2009, and will of course be back at it again at #rpTEN as part of Stage 6 at the MEDIA CONVENTION on Day 1.
Find all Law Lab sessions in our overview here.
Photo credit: Dennis Skley – Paragraphendschungel 218/365 (CC BY-ND 2.0)