Guest: Alexander Heffner, Founder of Scoop08
Topic: “Scoop08: Political Newcomers Welcome”

Tuesday, March 11, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center Conference Room
23 Everett St., 2nd Floor, Cambridge MA

Alexander Heffner will discuss Scoop08.com, a startup non-partisan student publication he co-founded to offer fresh coverage of the 2008 presidential election through a national network of student journalists. Scoop08 strives to offer distinctive youth perspectives on the race, with innovative and unconventional beats such as “Independent Candidate,” “Rhetoric,” and “Arts” Correspondents as well as a diverse array of columnists. With a full-fledged editorial board and committed staff writers and copy editors, the Website operates like any professional electronic or print magazine. Presently, Scoop08 has a network of several hundred student journalists across the country and abroad, and actively continues to recruit new editors and writers. Its staff hails from colleges and high schools across America, from Phillips Academy, Yale, and Harvard to Ohio University, Arizona State, Washington University in St. Louis to Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California.

Scoop08 welcomes veteran student journalists to join its staff, and encourages first-time writers to submit freelance articles and posts to gain experience. Between academic and extracurricular activities, keeping the Website updated daily has been a demanding task, one enthusiastically embraced by its editors and writers. As the 2008 primary campaign takes us into the general election, Scoop08 continues to accept submissions and to publish long-term features and investigative reports delving ever more deeply into the presidential frontrunners, their policy positions and initiatives, and the implications of their would-be presidencies.

Since its birth in November 2007, Scoop08 has grappled with the myriad questions facing online news outlets and virtual newsrooms. Beyond print, how should multimedia be integrated into a news Website? How can journalism—traditional ink as well as new technologies—arouse student interest in public affairs and combat voter apathy? Which tactics work—and which don’t? Without horse race-centered coverage, how can a Website report and present thoughtful, even academic, ideas and still generate buzz in the mainstream media and the blogosphere? How can responsible young people (and adults too) participate in a two-way conversation with the news gatherers and pundits? How can well-informed readers of all ages evolve into trustworthy citizen journalists and writers, upholding lasting principles of “good journalism?” Indeed, can we agree on what makes sound journalistic practices and an informative, truly meaningful story? Join us to discuss Scoop08.com, as old-school meets new-school in the world of online journalism.

About Alexander

Alexander Heffner is a senior at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. He is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Scoop08.com, an online national student newspaper dedicated to coverage of the 2008 presidential election. Its advisory board includes former U.S. Senators Gary Hart and Alan Simpson as well as journalists Jonathan Alter, Frank Rich, and Judy Woodruff. Heffner is general manager of WPAA, the Academy’s radio station, and founder of The Political Arena with Alexander Heffner, a public affairs program for which he has interviewed prominent figures in politics, journalism, and academic life, including Douglas Brinkley, Doris Kearns Goodwin, James Leach, Bob Kerrey, Jim Lehrer, Helen Thomas, John Zogby, and Mort Zuckerman, among others. This past summer, Heffner served as an online writer for Columbia Journalism Review. For his work in journalism and politics, he was recently named a “Young Person Who Rocks” by CNN.

Links to Scoop08

To join Scoop08’s staff
Scoop08 Trailer
Scoop08 on CNN
Scoop08 on “Young People Who Rock”
Scoop08 on History News Network

For coverage of Scoop08, please visit the following articles

McClatchy Company Newspapers
The Boston Globe
The Washington Post
Reuters
BBC
The New York Times

Webcast

This event will be webcast live. Webcast viewers can join the discussion through IRC text chat or in the virtual world Second Life. If you miss the live chat, catch the podcast audio & video at MediaBerkman.

David Weinberger is liveblogging the event.

Kevin Parker is liveblogging the event.

Wendy Seltzer is liveblogging the event.

Drew Clark is liveblogging the event.

Join the live IRC Chat in the room.

Post a question for discussion here.

Listen to the live webcast here.

FCCBoston08 Del.icio.us Tag Stream

(These notes are by no means complete and comprehensive - and represent a summary, not a transcript, of the event)

1:20: Kevin Parker on the Q + A portion of the panel

1:15: Drew Clark posts on the hearing

12:50: Professor Yoo: There’s no question that network providers must add capacity. In this world, the network owners have to make decision on how they’re going to configure their bandwidth. We’re now in world where we have many different transmission technologies and are susceptible to traffic problems. One suggestion: We need to build more bandwidth, but it’s expensive and difficult to predict about.

12:45: Tim Wu: I hope the commission takes the time to clarify one thing: To arrive at a very simple kind of rule. Whatever we think reasonable network management is, it should not include blocking lawful applications. I’ve been interested in this issue since my time in Silicon Valley, and I use to be on the other side of this debate. One of the things that always bothered me about selling the products I did, was selling these products to oppressive regimes. In these technologies, and in searching deep packet inspections, you have the tech of censorship being built into the system. We should think very carefully about allowing America - the home of the free and open internet - becoming a place that has a reputation for a filtered and closed internet.

Let me discuss how this intersects with policy. America has spent a lot of time advertising itself as the home of a free press and a free internet. We advertise ourselves as the model of free speech and open networks. Keeping the internet as the American internet. What happens here will be followed everywhere.

12:30: From Kevin Parker:

“Panelist 3 - Judge Bosley. In western Mass broadband is important for economic development. Small businesses need bandwidth. Who gets to say what we need? (Nobody should.) This sounds like slotting fees at supermarket, pay for the end of the aisle. But this has become anticompetitive.

Issue isn’t content, it is capacity. ISPs have a point here, but we need to have an open net to find the most creative and innovative solutions. What we need is a national broadband plan. As is, ISPs have no incentives to increase average speeds, etc.

Panelist 4 - David Cohen, EVP Comcast. Wants to be a participant and not the main course for the meal. Comcast wants to give customers a superior internet experience. 92% of the country has broadband availble through cable. What is the key to success? Market forces and a lack of gov’t regulation.

There is nothing wrong with network management. This must happen. We have to fight congestion, spam, and viruses. Bandwidth consumption is a real concern. Goal is to have a minimal impact on a small number of users. We don’t block any websites or applications (but HMS does!).”

12:20: David Weinberger on Yochai Benkler’s testimony

12:11: Panels Begin: Marvin Ammori: This is about the future of the internet. Comcast is deliberately targeting and interfering with p2p technologies, including Bittorrent and others. These technologies help to distribute open source software, high resolution photos, and video. Video services, like Bittorrent and Miro, threaten Comcast. By targeting p2p, Comcast is threatening innovation.

12:04: Gilles: We only provide distribution to licensed content and have agreements with the content providers on our network.

11:53: Technology demonstration of Vuze. Gilles BianRosa. The reason I am here is to foster transparency and openness. Vuze is one of the fastest growing video distribution platforms - we offer a high resolution experience, comparable to watching a DVD. There have been 20 million downloads of our application. We have more than 150 content partners, including PBS, BBC, Showtime, History Channel. The absence of enforceable ground rules threatens the openness of the internet. And we only have promises of good faith to protect us. Make the rules relevant and transparent, so innovators like Vuze can deliver - the future of the internet depends on it.

11:45: McDowell: Today we focus on the positive and constructive economic destruction caused by the vibrancy of new media. The new media economy is working through growing pains. In fact, Comscore reported that American viewed an eye-popping 10 billion online videos in December alone.

11:35: Adelstein: Our colleagues at the FTC, held their own hearing on net neutrality over 8 months ago. I’m glad we’re doing this now. We need to establish an effective internet bill of rights that will secure rights for generations to come. We must preserve the open and neutral character of the internet that’s been it’s hallmark from the very beginning. Right now we’re seeing a broadband market where telephone/isps control 93% of the broadband market… Consumers don’t want the internet to become another version of old media. We face a major challenge in this country making sure we deploy affordable broadband connection everywhere. I think that preserving the vibrant quality of the internet, and having high speed access, are issues that go hand in hand. Access translates into opportunity.

11:32: If we don’t get this right, we will have squandered a technology and an opportunity.

11:30: Now we have allegations that an operator is degrading/blocking p2p file programs. I am not saying that all of these services are unlawful. But the affect our choices in the future - what we say, where we can go, what info we can encounter, and how we can access it. How all of this turns out is a very big deal for each and every one of us. I keep saying: The time has come that the specific enforceable principle of non-discrimination at the FCC… should be added to the FCC’s internet policy statement.

11:25: Copps: I have long advocated that the commission get away from the beltway to hear from the people about these issues - and the future of the internet is one such issue. I see no reason for us to wait on a new law to get this going… Before we begin hearing from our panelists, consider for a moment where we are in chartering the future of the internet. Right now, network operators are making choices that will determine how Americans will communicate now and in the future. Some of their choices may be right, some of their choices may be wrong. These are hard and complex questions. But these critical questions are indeed being made, and they were being made in a virtual black box that the American public had little opportunity to peek into. If anyone is uncertain that these choices are indeed being made right now, let’s take a quicklook at what we learned in 2007. That was the year that one of the nation’s wireless providers rejected a pro-choice text message as too controversial.

11:18: Martin: Review of the FCC’s internet policy statement

11:16: Marky: Finally, the commission should examine these issues not only to discern corporate practice, but also to ascertain whether these actions are temporary - “managerial creations of the moment” that the carriers may find useful and make permanent for non-networking reasons. The beauty of the internet is its wonderful, chaotic, evolving nature, and it’s ability to reinvent itself every year.

11:13: Marky: I am pleased that the commission has returned to MA in exploring contemporary issues in the development of the internet. We should keep in mind (1) The internet is as much mine and yours as it is Verizons, AT&T’s, and Comast’s, (2) The nature of the net is really not about services provided by carriers themselves - they don’t provide internet services, they provide broadband access to the internet. This distinction is vital in my view.

11:07: We’re fortunate and delighted to say that Chairman Ed Markey could attend, and we want to welcome him to open with remarks.

Today, the FCC is hosting a hearing on broadband network management practices on the campus of Harvard Law School, hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. In addition, the Berkman Center will host a public post-panel discussion and reception following the hearing. 

The FCC will hear from two panels of stakeholders who will offer policy and technical perspectives.  Panelists will include David L. Cohen, Executive Vice President of Comcast; Eric Klinker, Chief Technology Officer of BitTorrent; Marvin Ammori, General Counsel for Free Press; and Berkman Faculty Director Yochai Benkler.

Webcast

The hearing will be audio webcast at this site, starting at 11 AM ET.

Social Tools

If you’re attending the hearing today, you can participate by posting questions and comments on our question tool (simply choose the instance for the Feb25FCCHearing). The del.icio.us and flickr to share them.

For updates throughout the day, visit our events blog.

Also be sure to check out Berkman fellow David Weinberger’s op-ed in this past Saturday’s Boston Globe on Net Neutrality and today’s hearing.

Time: 6:00PM

Location: MIT’s Stata Center (aka “Building 32″), room 32-155.  The Stata Center is two blocks from the Kendall Square T (subway) stop, on the Red Line.  You can find directions below:

http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=32&mapsearch=go
http://beyondbroadcast.net/blog/wp-content/themes/kiwi/images/map.png

This event is free and open to all members of the Harvard-Yale-MIT community.  The following speakers will present their work:

From Yale ISP:
Stephen Wilmarth, Co-Founder, Center for 21st Century Skills
“Five Socio-Technology Trends that Change Everything in 21st Century Learning and Teaching”

From Harvard Berkman Center:
Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Fellow
“Defining Taxonomies for Access and Reuse of Creative Works and Scientific Data”

From MIT Comparative Media Studies:
Colleen Kaman, Graduate Student in CMS
“The World Earth Catalog Redux: Environmentalism in the Age of Global Climate Change”

PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS AND SPEAKER BIOS BELOW:

Stephen Wilmarth, Center for 21st Century Skills
“Five Socio-Technology Trends that Change Everything in 21st Century Learning and Teaching”

* Abstract *

New digital technologies open the door on changes in learning and teaching that go much deeper than anything we’ve experienced in history.  Converging technologies are augmented by new social patterns, creating a “virtuous cycle” of new knowledge creation. Until now, technology has made its impact on productivity in global commerce, as we’ve defined it by industrial age standards.  So, e-mail, the World Wide Web and cell phones have made us more accessible, more mobile, and more productive in our daily lives. The problem is, our measurements of productivity continue to be grounded in industrial age standards and ideas.  The case can be made that at the dawn of the 21st century, converging technologies and emerging social trends lay the groundwork for entirely new landscapes, in society, in commerce, in the very meaning of the work we do and the lives we lead, and ultimately in the what, where, why, and how we learn.  Curriculum design has been the foundation of our pedagogy practice and professional teaching standards in a system that has changed only marginally since the start of the modern academy of the Renaissance period.  But emerging socio-technology trends will have a broad and definitive impact on curriculum design going forward. Learning and teaching will be reshaped by the forces of social production, social networks, a semantic web, media grids, and a new paradigm of knowledge creation best stated as a metaphor with biological, organic, sustainable tenor.  Let’s refer to the metaphor as “the new zoo” and debate how this metaphoric representation of knowledge creation forces a new look at how we should redesign learning experiences going forward.

* Biography *

Stephen Wilmarth is currently a Senior Program Specialist and Co-Founder of the Center for 21st Century Skills in Litchfield, Connecticut.  The Center is an NSF-funded program with the purpose to design and operate innovative learning programs in K-14 classrooms and learning communities.  The mission of the Center is to prepare learners for productive lives in a global 21st century society and economy.  He received his B.A. in History from the University of Bridgeport, and has attended Suffolk Law School, Babson’s Olin Graduate School of Management, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Prior to his experience as an educator, Wilmarth founded several high-tech, VC funded start-ups.  He has been a guest lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and the London Business School, and is currently under contract with ASCD (an educational publishing house) to co-author a book on curriculum design with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs of Columbia University’s Teachers College.  He has been a friend of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Internet Society Project at Yale Law School for the past several years.

—

From Harvard Berkman Center:
Melanie Dulong de Rosnay
“Defining Taxonomies for Access and Reuse of creative works and scientific data”

*Abstract*

Rights expression languages provide legal metadata and relational elements to describe which actions can be performed on creative works and information. They can be part of digital rights management systems, or used by search engines to find works according to their availability status. Current legal metadata schemes express legal and contractual rules with standardized syntax (e.g. XML, RDF), but are not necessarily semantically interoperable. Compatibility may be achieved through the definition of a common denominator, e.g. jurisdiction-based definitions (European law harmonization and transposition, national versions of Creative Commons licenses), or community-based norms (citation, commercial use, appropriation or reuse). Definitions, licenses and protocols may evaluate freedom or openness and restrictions.

This research is currently being extended in collaboration with Science Commons in order to identify freedoms and restrictions for scientific databases. To this end, Science Commons has released a Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data, a set of “requirements for gaining and using the Science Commons Open Access Data Mark and metadata.”

* Biography *

Melanie Dulong de Rosnay is a fellow at the Berkman Center for
Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, where she leads research in
copyright law and information science. In addition, she is designing
a distance learning course on copyright for librarians in partnership
with eIFL, working on open access science and open data policy with
Science Commons, coordinating publications for Communia, the European
thematic network on the digital public domain, and serving as legal
project lead for Creative Commons in France.

Prior to joining the Berkman Center, Ms. Dulong de Rosnay
participated to research projects on legal metadata and ontologies,
rights expression languages, e-science and open access, Internet
governance, and technical standardization (MPEG-21). She holds a
doctorate in law from CERSA (the Administrative Science Studies
Research Center from University Paris 2), where her dissertation was
entitled “Legal and technological regulation of networked information
and creative works.” She also holds degrees in political science and
law from the Universities of Lyon, Leipzig, and Tilburg, and has
taught copyright law at the University of Technology of Compiègne,
France.

—

Colleen Kaman, Graduate Student in CMS
“The World Earth Catalog Redux: Environmentalism in the Age of Global Climate Change”

* Abstract *

The threat of climate change has generated increasing interest in curbing energy use. Many of the well-publicized efforts have included corporate strategies to ‘go green’ and become more environmentally friendly as well as cap and trade systems and laws that seek to curb carbon emissions. Some argue that these current responses do not adequately address the fundamental need to change how we produce and consume energy. Moreover, while U.S. environmental movement has generated a public response to this threat, the reaction has not been widespread and sustained enough to substantial impact the problem. Critics note that without tackling the large issue of energy use, we will fail to attain the eighty percent cut in carbon emissions by 2050 needed to avoid the most drastic impacts of climate change. This paper examines the threat of climate change not as a scientific problem, but as a social and cultural one. More than seventy percent of Americans consider themselves to be active in, or sympathetic to, the environmental movement, although only about ten percent have actually made an effort to substantially curb their so-called carbon footprint. At the same time, an increasing number of Americans feel that the movement is doing more harm than good. This paper traces the current tension in and relative ineffectiveness of the environmental movement to changing relationships between citizenship, media, politics, and consumer culture. Environmentalism is a complex issue, simultaneously existing as a political movement and an economic, social, and even counter-cultural construct. Competing notions of citizenship classify the problem of climate change differently and hence propose very different solutions to curbing it. How might the specific criticisms of the environmental movement reveal these deeper tensions? How might we understand the role of the individual across competing models of citizenship? And finally, how do various models of citizenship impact media choice and the message created? This research will explore several case studies to reveal how these shifting boundaries are creating new opportunities for a citizen-led environmentalism that transcends the bounds traditionally set by the environmental establishment.

* Biography *

Colleen Kaman is in the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT, where she is analyzing the intersection of new media on notions of democracy and vernacular culture. She is a researcher with the Center for Future Civic Media, a CMS-Media Lab initiative. Her research focuses on notions of public space, mobility, identity, and narrative across media.  She currently is developing a mobile air pollution-monitoring device that functions as a digital pet and social networking tool as well as a community-driven participatory radio site. Prior to coming to MIT, Ms. Kaman worked almost ten years as a documentary producer/director and broadcast journalist where she examined issues involving electoral politics, environment, health, education, and the judicial system. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology from Bates College in 1995.

Berkman@10 Event

The Federal Communications Commission today announced a public en banc hearing to be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Monday, February 25, 2008, hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society on the campus of Harvard Law School.

The hearing time and location are as follows:

Time: 11:00 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time)

Location:
Harvard Law School
Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall
1515 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138

Directions

The Commission will hear from expert panelists regarding broadband network management practices. The hearing is open to the public, and seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

The public may file comments or other documents with the Commission and should reference docket numbers 07-52 and 08-7 when filing by paper or submit your filing electronically and enter proceeding numbers 07-52 and 08-7. Filing instructions are provided here.

Sign language interpreters and open captioning will be provided for this event. Other reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities are available upon request. Include a description of the accommodation needed, and include a way we can contact you if we need more information. Please make your request as early as possible. Last minute requests will be accepted, but may be impossible to fill. Send an e-mail to fcc504@fcc.gov or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (tty).

For additional information about the hearing, please visit the FCC’s website. Press inquiries should be directed to Clyde Ensslin at 202-418-0506 or Robert Kenny at 202-418-2668.

+ Announcement

Harvard-Yale-MIT Cyberscholar Working Group
Tuesday, February 19 @ MIT (room TBA)

The next Harvard-Yale-MIT Cyberscholar Working Group will be held on Tuesday, February 19, at MIT (room TBA). Please join us for our usual vigorous discussion, with two scheduled presentations:

* Stephen Wilmarth, Senior Program Specialist and Co-Founder of the Center for 21st Century Skills, will make a presentation entitled “Five Socio-Technology Trends that Change Everything in 21st Century Learning and Teaching”

* Berkman Fellow Melanie Dulong de Rosnay will present based on her ongoing research in Open Access to scientific and academic research.

Bios of both presenters, as well as an abstract of Mr. Wilmarth’s presentation, follow.

* Abstract *

New digital technologies open the door on changes in learning and teaching that go much deeper than anything we’ve experienced in history.  Converging technologies are augmented by new social patterns, creating a “virtuous cycle” of new knowledge creation.  Until now, technology has made its impact on productivity in global commerce, as we’ve defined it by industrial age standards.  So, e-mail, the World Wide Web and cell phones have made us more accessible, more mobile, and more productive in our daily lives.  The problem is, our measurements of productivity continue to be grounded in industrial age standards and ideas.  The case can be made that at the dawn of the 21st century, converging technologies and emerging social trends lay the groundwork for entirely new landscapes, in society, in commerce, in the very meaning of the work we do and the lives we lead, and ultimately in the what, where, why, and how we learn.  Curriculum design has been the foundation of our pedagogy practice and professional teaching standards in a system that has changed only marginally since the start of the modern academy of the Renaissance period.  But emerging socio-technology trends will have a broad and definitive impact on curriculum design going forward. Learning and teaching will be reshaped by the forces of social production, social networks, a semantic web, media grids, and a new paradigm of knowledge creation best stated as a metaphor with biological, organic, sustainable tenor.  Let’s refer to the metaphor as “the new zoo” and debate how this metaphoric representation of knowledge creation forces a new look at how we should redesign learning experiences going forward.

* Biography *

Stephen Wilmarth is currently a Senior Program Specialist and Co-Founder of the Center for 21st Century Skills in Litchfield, Connecticut.  The Center is an NSF-funded program with the purpose to design and operate innovative learning programs in K-14 classrooms and learning communities.  The mission of the Center is to prepare learners for productive lives in a global 21st century society and economy.  He received his B.A. in History from the University of Bridgeport, and has attended Suffolk Law School, Babson’s Olin Graduate School of Management, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Prior to his experience as an educator, Wilmarth founded several high-tech, VC funded start-ups.  He has been a guest lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and the London Business School, and is currently under contract with ASCD (an educational publishing house) to co-author a book on curriculum design with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs of Columbia University’s Teachers College.  He has been a friend of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Internet Society Project at Yale Law School for the past several years.

—-

Open Access - Ongoing Research

* Biography *

Melanie Dulong de Rosnay is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, where she leads research in copyright law and information science. In addition, she is designing a distance learning course on copyright for librarians in partnership with eIFL, working on open access science and open data policy with Science Commons, coordinating publications for Communia, the European thematic network on the digital public domain, and serving as legal project lead for Creative Commons in France.

Prior to joining the Berkman Center, Ms. Dulong de Rosnay participated to research projects on legal metadata and ontologies, rights expression languages, e-science and open access, Internet governance, and technical standardization (MPEG-21). She holds a doctorate in law from CERSA (the Administrative Science Studies Research Center from University Paris 2), where her dissertation was entitled “Legal and technological regulation of networked information and creative works.” She also holds degrees in political science and law from the Universities of Lyon, Leipzig, and Tilburg, and has taught copyright law at the University of Technology of Compiègne, France.

—-

The Berkman Center has some stellar events approaching in the upcoming months - as part of the Berkman Center’s 10th Anniversary Celebration - and truly hope that you’ll be able to join us as we reflect upon the Center’s accomplishments and history, as well as look forward to the next 10 years of pioneering and studying cyberspace. Our spring events lineup leads us deeper into questions around the state and trajectory of the internet, with more info forthcoming here.

For now, however, you will want to ink these!

FEBRUARY
=========
* February 12: The Berkman Center Spring Open House at 7PM in Pound 101, Reception to follow at Berkman’s offices at 8PM

* February 28: Clay Shirky on his new book, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” (Evening talk)

MARCH
=======
* March 11: A Forum Event at the Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics on Youth, Politics, and Civic Engagement(Late afternoon/evening)

* March 14: Berkman Book Release: “Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering”, a publication of the OpenNet Initiative (Late afternoon/evening)

* March 17: A Luncheon on Open Access with Peter Suber

* March 20: Lisa Stone, Founder of BlogHer and Former Nieman Fellow, topic TBD (Late afternoon/evening)

APRIL
=====
* April 4: Larry Lessig, Founder of Creative Commons and Professor at Stanford Law School, topic TBD (Late afternoon/evening)

* April 11: Berkman Book Release: (in New York, NY) “The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It”, by Jonathan Zittrain / with NYC Reception 

* April 18: Berkman Book Release: (in Boston/Cambridge, MA) “The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It”, by Jonathan Zittrain (Late afternoon/evening)

MAY
=====
* May 15-16: The Berkman Center’s 10th Anniversary Gala and Conference

*All events are free and open to the public,* except for the Berkman @ 10 Conference and Gala, on May 15-16, which we are collecting registration fees in order to cover the costs.

Invite your friends, students, colleagues, co-workers, fellow faculty, research assistants, interns, family, and others to celebrate and collaborate with us. Please don’t hesitate to forward and blog this information.

These events will take place on the campus at Harvard Law School unless otherwise noted, with more information on time, venue, and topic posted on the events page. The events page also includes a complete list of luncheons and other events, which we hope you’ll also be able to join us for!

Guest: Lewis Hyde, Berkman Fellow and Professor of Creative Writing, Keynon College
Topic: “Reclaiming Fair Use for Scholars and Teachers”

Tuesday, February 19, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center Conference Room
23 Everett St., 2nd Floor, Cambridge MA

“Fair use” is a legal doctrine creating what has been called a “situational public domain” within the exclusive rights that copyright gives to content owners. Fair use rights have turned out to be hard to exercise in practice, however, partly because the fair use statute is vaguely worded and partly because specific guidance has arisen only from narrowly-focused case law.

How might fair use be reclaimed as an expressive right? One answer has been for particular creative communities to articulate their own “best practices” in fair use, to reclaim, that is, the breadth of expression that the statute was intended to allow by clearly stating their own norms regarding the circulation of knowledge.

Lewis Hyde’s talk will review the history of fair use, describe work now being done on the best practices model, and propose for discussion an “educational fair use project” targeted to teachers and scholars in American higher education.

Links

+ Homepage

Webcast

This event will be webcast live. Webcast viewers can join the discussion through IRC text chat or in the virtual world Second Life. If you miss the live chat, catch the podcast audio & video at MediaBerkman.

Please RSVP to Amar Ashar at rsvp@cyber.law.harvard.edu if you plan to attend.

Web of Ideas with David Weinberger and Special Guest Musician Brad Sucks
Monday, February 11, 7:00 PM
Griswold Hall Room 110
Harvard Law School
Map of HLS Campus

The traditional music industry is crumbling. From the dust comes … BradSucks. Brad Turcotte is the very paragon of a Webby, open source musician. At his site (http://www.bradsucks.net) you can download his music for free or pay him a little money. You can reuse his music as you’d like, subject to the Creative Commons license. Not only can you remix it, but Brad posts especially good remixes. He has even open sourced the paint job for one of his guitars. At this Web of Ideas, Brad will play some music and talk with David Weinberger of the Berkman Center about whether he’s the future of the music industry.

Web of Ideas is an evening discussion series at the Berkman Center, lead by Berkman Fellow David Weinberger, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined and Everything is Miscellaneous. Each session will begin with a 20 minute discussion-opener, followed by open conversation. Food will be provided.

This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to Amar Ashar at rsvp@cyber.law.harvard.edu if you plan to attend.

Wednesday, December 5, 6:30 pm
Berkman Center Conference Room
23 Everett St., 2nd Floor, Cambridge MA 

It’s easy to find business and political leaders. But who are the Web’s leaders? Although the big online collaborative projects have nominal leaders, they play a very different role than do traditional CEO’s. The Web seems to be providing an alternative to the notion that business leaders are people imbued with special traits. In fact, Some of the traits and roles of traditional leadership are now becoming properties of the network itself. What effect might that have on leadership off the Web? Is online life so different that political and business leadership will continue unaltered? Come to an open discussion…

Web of Ideas is a Wednesday night discussion series at the Berkman Center, lead by Berkman Fellow David Weinberger, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined. Each session will begin with a 20 minute discussion-opener, followed by open conversation. Food will be provided, and meetings will take place at the Berkman Center. Pizza will be served!

(Photo via Doc Searls)