STREAMING MEDIA MAY BE THE NEXT LEGAL BATTLEGROUND: LA'S BAR TO BE NATION'S FIRST TO ADDRESS STREAMED CONTENT

LOS ANGELES - September 18, 2000. Entertainment attorneys may not be ready for the next possible legal battleground on the net, streaming media, warned attorneys from Subscreen, the Los Angeles County Bar Association's subsection of Television and Film and the Internet. As a part of the nation's largest local bar association, Subscreen announced Monday it will become the nation's first bar association to address streaming media and its impact on copyright law when it hosts a roundtable discussion on October 25 featuring top net-streamers from Microsoft and Launch.com.

"While the MP3 and Napster decisions may suggest that attorneys comprehend all the legal concerns underlying content delivery over the net, the truth is quite different" warned Subscreen Executive Board member Anthony Kling, an attorney who also serves as CEO of netcaster TelevisionInternet.com .

Subscreen, whose membership includes Los Angeles' leading entertainment attorneys and corporate counsels, decided to host the event months before the recent high-profiled net-suits. Subscreen saw a widespread concern among attorneys as to how to handle streamed content under the Copyright Act. "For even sophisticated corporate counsel, streaming media content can pose a confusion for purposes of Copyright registration and protection. For example, is unauthorized 'stream linking' or 'stream tapping' (the direct linking to a content provider's stream) amount to copyright infringement," questions Kling. Kling believes so, and points to other content providers that begun to form coalitions to protect their audio and video product against stream linking.

Microsoft's James Root will headline the event followed by Launch.com's President Bob Roback and several leading Los Angeles attorneys including Lon Sobel. The event is being hosted by Microsoft, whose Windows Media platform has enabled the emergence content creators and aggregators like Launch.com and TelevisionInternet.com .

About Subscreen
Subscreen is a subsection of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the nation's largest local bar association. Committed to television, film and internet matters, Subscreen events have in recent years brought together Los Angeles' top corporate counsels and entertainment attorneys on groundbreaking issues.