05/14/96 RMIUG Meeting - Legal Aspects of the Internet

The Tuesday, May 14th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group (RMIUG) will feature a panel of three lawyers who will discuss selected legal aspects of the Internet. Each panelist will talk for 15-20 minutes on a particular topic that interests him, and then we'll have a Q&A so the audience can ask about these and any other questions about legal aspects of the Internet. Our panelists are:

Les Berkowitz (tklaw@aol.com) has practiced law for 23 years, 15 of which has been representing companies regarding technology issues. He has chaired the Legal Panel for the World Congress on Expert Software Systems and written numerous articles. Les chairs the Internet Committee of the Technology Law Committee of the Colorado Bar Association and is a member of Mayor Webb's Telecommunication Advisory Committee. He will discuss how to avoid liability for what you and others do on the Internet.

Paul Lewis (pflewis@mgovg.com) has a broad-ranging litigation and transaction practice which emphasizes technology issues. He has been a self-described "hopeless computer geek" since the TRS-80 days and an Internet junkie before anyone had heard of the World Wide Web. He is a frequent lecturer and writer on the Internet and legal issues on the net. Presently he is co-authoring a book on Internet legal issues scheduled for publication by Prentice-Hall later this year. Paul will be discussing how and why to protect your domain name, the screwy InterNIC domain name rules, and why you need to register your trademarks in Tunisia.

Peter Edwards (edwardsp@msn.com) has been practicing advertising and telecommunications law for 20 years. During that time, he has represented everyone from the solo photographer (as regional counsel for the American Society of Media Photographers) to Jones Intercable to the CBS Television Network and 60 Minutes. He has been a board member of Jones Intercable and currently sits on the board of KBDI TV Channel 12. He is an ardent believer in First Amendment principles and wants to do everything he can to keep the Internet as free and as open a forum as the steps of the capitol. Somewhat ironically, he recently successfully defended KBDI television against a claim that they violated the first amendment rights of a producer when they refused to broadcast a program because of its obscene subject matter. Peter will be talking about the so-called "Communications Decency Act" which passed in February and other obscenity, decency and pornography issues on the Internet.

The meeting is Tuesday, May 14th, from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional 6:30 pm start for informal networking and refreshments). The meeting will be held at the Department of Commerce (NIST) Building at 325 Broadway in Boulder, one traffic light South of Baseline. This facility holds 510 people. Park in the Dept. of Commerce lot, go in the main door (faces East), and find the main auditorium just to the right of the main entrance. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we will be passing the hat to defray the room rental charge we incur.

RMIUG appreciates the ongoing support from Internet One of Boulder for sponsoring refreshments and XOR Network Engineering for administration of RMIUG's electronic discussion lists & WWW site.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related product information, brochures, and business cards which will be displayed on an information table.

There is an email mailing list set up for this group. General information can be obtained by sending an Email to rmiug@rmiug.org which will generate an auto-reply message that tells you about the lists and how to subscribe. You can also reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@rmiug.org. Our WWW site is at http://www.rmiug.org/rmiug/

alek

P.S. http://www.law.georgetown.edu/lc/internic/domain1.html has an excellent discussion on Domain Name issues ... highly recommended reading as a primer for this meeting.