Internet & Society Conference 2007

A plug for an amazing event June 1st at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. This year's conference focuses on "UNIVERSITY – Knowledge Beyond Authority," revolving around the question, "What is the role of University in cyberspace?"

A dream team line-up will be at the event, including

Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman of One Laptop per Child Project;
Lewis Hyde, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Fellow and author of The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property;
John Wilbanks, Executive Director, Science Commons

Please consider stopping by!

Pondering

Well, it's been a rollercoaster keeping up with all the developments in cyberlaw and intellectual property. Just receiving the BNA Newsletter was enough to saturate your average college student, let alone one who wished to chase down the various leads that the newsletter suggests.

My biggest reward for this semester has been the realization of the variety and nuance in cyberlaw. It is an engaging and evolving field, and very exciting in that it offers to many gray areas, areas that are bound to change as technical capabilities change alongside social practices and norms.

The internet offers an unparalleled venue in which to play out a multitude of human interaction. And as we have now learned of humans, interaction often entails conflict. And where conflict arises, the law steps in. This legal intervention has been particularly enchanting for me. How can we modify the law to better serve the people using it? How do we adapt legal conventions to fit emerging technologies? Cyberlaw is quite a multifaceted field, and I am happy to have waded through some of its many topics.

Diggers: The Power of a Crowd

Recently there has been quite a flurry of activity on Digg.com, an internet site aggregating page rankings and summarizing links. A situation arose in which an encryption key used in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray anti-copying technology was posted on numerous pages. Digg.com received several cease-and-desist letters, and made efforts to remove links to the encryption code.

Diggers rioted.

They furiously posted about the rights of users to display and link the information, and they protested the lengths in which the content industries have been overzealous in their IP protection. Digg.com responded to the posts and has decided to allow the encryption code to remain on the site. They claim that they would rather go down fighting than cave in to censorship.

As for the encryption code, it goes down in cyberhistory. You can even buy the T-shirt:

I WANT MY HD-DVD 09-f9-11-02-9d-74 e3-5b-d8-41-5..

MIT 5

MIT recently hosted an incredibly successful conference on Creativity, Ownership, and Collaboration in the Digital Age. As part of their bi-annual Media in Transition event, MIT gathered an impressive group of people to discuss various aspects of digital media, authorship, intellectual property, and similar subjects. Wendy Gordon was in attendance as well, and her thoughts on fair use were poignant, esp when she noted that today's IP pactices are a cylce of Lather. Rinse. Repeat: 1) increased risk aversion for both users and producers, 2) More licensing, 3) More judicial intervention...leading of course back to increased risk aversion...

Here's a sampling of their agenda, which impressed me by its attention to legal aspects of the digital age, specifically copyright law:

• Copyright, Fair Use and the Cultural Commons

Hal Abelson, MIT
Pat Aufderheide, American University
Wendy Gordon, Boston University
Gordon Quinn, Kartemquin Films
Moderator: William Uricchio, MIT

• Second Life

Burcu Bakioglu, Hacking and Griefing as Acts that Create Performative Narratives in Second Life
Jeffrey Bardzell, Creativity, HCI and Fashion Design in Second Life
Brent Britton, Virtual Ownership
Mary Hopper, The Knowledge Gates to Second Life
Moderator: Alice J. Robison

• Copyright 2: Politics and Ethics

Giovanni Boccia Artieri, Fabio Giglietto, Luca Rossi, Ownership in the Digital Age: A Sociological Approach
Dion Dennis, Mapping the Digital Prohibition Movement
John McMurria, Compulsory Licensing and the Collective Ethics of Creative Compensation Adejoke Oyewunmi, Exploitation of Traditional Cultural Knowledge in Contemporary Societies
Moderator: Candis Callison

Copyright 5: DIY Copyright Reform: How to Liberate Fair Use for Tomorrow's Media Literacy Pat Aufderheide Renee Hobbs Moderator: Henry Jenkins

Broadcasting the Republican and Democratic Conventions

Lawrence Lessig has been a big advocate in working to convince both the Republican and Democratice National Conventions to broadcast their speeches, following the example of C-SPAN. An impressive group of advocates, from a range of platforms, has signed petitions to representatives of both parties. Yet it seems that the hugest hurdle is not necessiarly the parties, but actually MSNBC, who apparently regulates the use of their recorded debates. An exhaustiv, and extremely exessive and opressive list:

USAGE RULES FOR USE OF AUDIO OR VIDEO OF MSNBC MATERIAL RULES FOR “THE SOUTH CAROLINA DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES DEBATE” FROM MSNBC:

(The following rules apply to all media organizations that are not part of NBC)

News organizations, including radio, network television, cable television and local television may use excerpts of"The South Carolina Democratic Candidates Debate" subject to the following restrictions (internet use is not permitted):

1. An unobstructed onscreen credit "MSNBC" must appear during each debate excerpt and remain on screen for the entire excerpt.

2. Each debate excerpt must be introduced with an audio credit to MSNBC.

3. No excerpt may air in any medium until the live debate concludes at 8:30 pm ET.

4. No more than a combined total of 2 minutes of excerpts may be chosen for use during the period from the end of the live debate (8:30 pm ET) until 1:00 am ET on Friday, April 27. After 1:00 am ET, Friday, April 27, a total of 10 minutes may be selected (including any excerpts aired before 1:00AM). The selected excerpts may air as often as desired but the total of excerpts chosen may not exceed the limits outlined.

5. No excerpts may be aired after 8:30 pm on Saturday, May 26th. Excerpts may not be archived. Any further use of excerpts is by express permission of MSNBC only.

6. All debate excerpts must be taped directly from MSNBC™s cablecast or obtained directly from MSNBC and may not be obtained from other sources, such as satellite or other forms of transmission. No portions of the live event not aired by MSNBC may be used.

A feed of MSNBC™s telecast of the debate will be provided (details below), additionally limited audio/video mults will be available on site in the media center.

Libel Case against Google and Wikipedia

Former Canadian Green Party campaign manager Wayne Crookes has filed a libel suit against content providers Google (Blogspot) and Wikipedia. He claims that these sites have hosted negative material about his person and have been the source of defamation.

Is this a free speech question? Blogspot is a blogging service, meaning that users are posting content. Similarly, Wikipedia is a content provider to which all users are free to edit. In both of these cases, neithre Google nor Wikipedia have made explicit attempts to defame Crookes. Instead, they are providing the framework for other users to make such comments.

The lawsuit should be filed, if at all, at individual posters and not to the service providers. If Canada has a similar law to the DMCA, then Google and Wikipedia should be safe. They had no means to know of the material on their servers, nor did they receive explicit requests to remove the material. Good luck, Crookes.

The European Digital Library

The EU is continuing its progress towards developing the European Digital Library, a networked collection of Europe's cultural works. One of the biggest obstacles facing further advancement has been copyright law. The EU Observer reported that part of the blockade has been cleared, and that the initiative is well on its way to digitalizing more texts. Interestingly, Google has been listed as a large broker in this deal, specifically in digitalizing orphaned works. Are they planning on extending their Google Books project to include works on the EDL? Equally curious is whether Google will receive ad revenue from searches conducted by its service. Has the EU sorted out a bigger deal with the internet company?

Fortunately several large libraries in the U.S. are in full support of digitalizing orphaned works. These works, which are still under copyright's protection but do not have a reachable holder, have for a long time been disenfranchised. Google's wide-scale scanning project has helped revitalize the use of orphaned works and has even generated interest in getting out-of-print books back into production.