With Google TV and other over-the-top (OTT) services hitting the market, service providers (cable and satellite) and many broadcasters are expressing concern over cord-cutting and other issues at the intersection of television and the Internet. This session will look at the legal and business issues surrounding OTT services, including the protection of the broadcasters' content and advertising, as well as the issues surrounding ivi TV, the Seattle-based company that is being sued by a group of broadcasters who are seeking to stop it from retransmitting their over-the-air content. How should the courts and policy-makers act or not act to ensure the right balance between content protection and innovation at the intersection of television and the Internet?
Michael Petricone is the senior vice president of government affairs for the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).
In his position, Michael has been responsible for representing the CE industry’s position before Congress and the FCC on critical issues such as digital television broadband, driver safety and home recording rights. Mr. Petricone is a frequent speaker on policy issues impacting the consumer electronics industry, and in 2003 Michael was featured by Dealerscope Magazine as one of the technology industry’s “Top 40 Under 40”.
Mr. Petricone received his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and his undergraduate degree from Tufts University.
CEA represents more than 2,000 U.S. manufacturers of audio, video, accessories, mobile electronics, communication, information and multimedia products that are sold through consumer channels. CEA also sponsors and manages the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world’s largest annual trade event showcasing consumer electronics products.
As Co-Founder, CEO & Publisher of Digital Media Wire, Inc., Ned Sherman works at the center of the rapidly growing digital media industry, where he brokers relationships and keeps a tab on the most important developments shaping the industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Publisher Ned Sherman is more than the average pundit: He is an attorney and has an inside grasp of what is happening.”
Ned is a frequent speaker at industry events and has been quoted and profiled in publications including The Wall Street Journal, American Lawyer, LA Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Billboard and interviewed and featured on C-SPAN and National Public Radio (NPR). Ned is a board member of The Technology Council of Southern California and is a judge for the annual Mobile Excellence Awards. He is also founder and creator of the Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards, which he sold to VNU/Nielsen in 2006.
Ned is active in global media affairs, recently launching the Canadian Media Wire news service and serving as a judge for the O2 Digital Media Awards in Ireland, moderator at the annual MIDEM Global Music Exposition in Cannes, France, and chair of Digital Strategies Conference @ Canadian Music Week in Toronto.
Ned is a member of the California bar association and practices entertainment and corporate law representing a variety of clients in entertainment and media ventures. Before co-founding Digital Media Wire, Ned was a founding member of the iLaw Group in the Entertainment Department at Loeb & Loeb LLP in Los Angeles, where he handled licensing and corporate transactions and financings for media and entertainment clients including Universal Studios and MGM and launched dozens of Internet and new media start-ups. He has counseled company founders from initiation of a business plan to seed, angel, venture capital and later-stage private financings and managed all legal aspects of Internet clients from corporate organization, stockholder relationships, board compositions and dynamics, stock option plans, capital raising and security regulatory matters, Internet law issues, trademark, copyright, content and technology licensing, advertising and privacy issues.
In 2000, he was an Adjunct Lecturer of Law at Tulane University Law School where he taught an entertainment law seminar. Ned is a graduate of Brown University (AB, with honors, 1990) and the University of Texas School of Law (JD, 1994) where he was Chief Articles & Notes Editor of the Texas International Law Journal and winner of the national Scribes Awards for his article on the human rights ramifications of U.S. reservations to international death penalty treaties.
Ned is active in alumni affairs for Brown University and is currently Southern California Chair for Brown University's Alumni Interview Program. He has traveled extensively from Europe to Asia to South America to Northern Africa. Ned is married and lives with his wife, son and daughter in Los Angeles, California.
