The University of Colorado School of Law and the Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program will host a symposium Jan. 27-28 to inaugurate the school's new Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law.
The symposium, titled "The Regulation of Information Platforms," will meet in the Lindsley Memorial Courtroom of the Fleming Law Building on campus.
The forum will bring together a number of top telecommunications people in industry, government and academia to discuss how law and regulation need to evolve to respond to technological convergence among the computer, communications and entertainment information industries.
Keynote speakers for the two-day symposium will include, among others, Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford University and author of "The Future of Ideas;" Vint Cerf, senior vice president of Internet Architecture and Technology for WorldCom, who is widely known as a "Father of the Internet;" and Qwest Communications CEO Joseph Nacchio.
"Given Colorado's presence as a hub for technology and telecommunications companies, bringing nationally recognized leaders to campus to address policy issues is a natural for the law school," said Dean Hal Bruff.
"All too often, lawyers and the law fail to grapple effectively with technological change," he said. "The Silicon Flatirons Program provides the law school and the surrounding community with an invaluable opportunity to struggle with cutting edge issues."
"This conference will not only bring together three former chief economists of the Federal Communications Commission, but also a federal appeals court judge, a former head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and the leading academic commentators in the area," said Phil Weiser, executive director of the program. "I cannot imagine a more appropriate way to launch the Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law."
The symposium will take a novel approach by examining current policy issues through the lens of several areas of the law; telecommunications regulation, antitrust, intellectual property and the First Amendment.
"This approach will enable lawyers to appreciate how technological convergence requires legal convergence," said Weiser. "In the information economy, companies like AOL Time Warner will provide services that cannot be easily regulated under a single category of law."
"Only through understanding the interaction of law, technology and business realities can we truly understand the dynamics of this important sector of our economy," noted Dale Hatfield, chair of the department of interdisciplinary telecommunications. "Making these connections is the hallmark of the university's interdisciplinary telecommunications program, which was the first of its kind in the nation."
The symposium begins at 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 27 and will conclude that day with a reception at 5:30 p.m. The next day the program will begin at 8:30 a.m. and end at 2:15 p.m., after a lunch banquet at the University Club.
All CU students, faculty, staff and press will be admitted free of charge. The symposium is co-sponsored by the Federal Communications Bar Association, the Association of Denver Telecommunications Professionals, the Communications Section of the Colorado Bar Association and the interdisciplinary telecommunications program.
For program and registration information, please visit the Silicon Flatirons Web site at , or contact Adam Peters at (303) 735-5633 or via email at Adam.Peters@colorado.edu.