MediaBerkman

This week, Colin Rhinesmith speaks with Sam Bayard about copyright and fair use issues involved in a recent lawsuit against the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Download the MP3 (time: 9:40)

Music used in this podcast was sampled and remixed from a track titled “Jazz House” by the Wicked Allstars, available on Magnatune.

This is our last podcast for 2007. We’ll be back in January with episode #7. In the meantime, stay tuned on our blog at citmedialaw.org. To subscribe to the Citizen Media Law Podcast, visit our Subscriptions page or go directly to the podcast feed.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Christine Harold, ries features Christine Harold, an Assistant Professor in Department of Communication at the University of Washington, was the guest speaker this week at the Berkman Center’s Luncheon Series.

Download the MP3 (time: 54:04)

Harold’s presentation, entitled “Inventing Publics: Kairos and Intellectual Property Law” looks to explore the possibilities of the “open content” movement, specifically the licensing model offered by Creative Commons, as a productive alternative to other prevalent responses to the corporate hoarding of cultural resources.

As she argues in her recent book OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture, rather than engaging commercial culture dialectically, an open content approach serves as a provocation to commercialism by amplifying certain market logics and, in doing so, undermines concepts such as “author” and “property” on which corporate power depends.

When Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube - and its parent company Google - this past March, it sent shockwaves across the Internet. Where would the liability fall when copyrighted materials were posted on user-generated sites? Would the status quo of cease-and-desist notices be enough to keep sites such as YouTube out of hot water?

The broader debate over the interests of copyright versus “fair use” has continued through a number of discussions since this case came to the forefront, with both sides taking paths they feel are most effective. Whether it’s the RIAA pursuing illegal downloads on college campuses or documentary filmmakers establishing best practices for fair use, the debate has been a lively one.

This week’s episode of Berkman.TV features Andrew McLaughlin who, in addition to being a Fellow Emeritus of the Berkman Center, is also the Director of Global Public Policy for Google. Andrew does a great job of addressing the breadth of challenges involved in the conflict and explains Google’s latest solution to the problem. Tune in and enjoy!

QuickTime Video

Harvard Business School Professor and Berkman Center Faculty Fellow, Karim Lakhani leads the Working Group Report and Action Plan afternoon session at Internet & Society 2007 on June 1.

Runtime: 56:21, size: 320×240, 157MB, .MOV, H.264 codec

QuickTime Video

Professor John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Digital Natives Principal Investigator, presents the conference keynote on being “Born Digital” at Internet & Society 2007 on June 1.

Runtime: 1:02:32, size: 320×240, 175MB, .MOV, H.264 codec

The Center for Social Media at American University and documentary filmmakers wrote a report on Best Practices in Fair Use to help navigate the waters of copyrighted materials and to determine when material use can be considered Fair Use. Much like documentarians, members of University communities are often riddled with questions as they create and express their work. How can we create Best Practices in Fair Use document for Universities similar to the one created for documentary filmmakers?

Facilitators: Lewis Hyde (Berkman Center Fellow), Patricia Aufderheide (Center for Social Media), Eric Gordon (Emerson College)

Download the MP3 (time: 1:26:09).

To learn more about this working group session, visit the Internet & Society 2007 wiki.

When Berkman Fellow and Chilling Effects founder Wendy Seltzer posted a Super Bowl clip to YouTube, she thought she’d get to teach a bit about copyright — the clip was the NFL’s warning that “Any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL’s consent, is prohibited.” In series of DMCA notices, copyright takedowns, counter-notifications, and put-backs, Seltzer has found the process more convoluted than even she anticipated. Join the discussion at the Berkman Center about the free expression stakes in Viacom v. YouTube: copyright, safe-harbors, and Chilling Effects.

Download the audio podcast (time: 1:10:31).

Brooklyn Law School, where she teaches Internet Law and Privacy. She was previously a staff attorney with Electronic Frontier Foundation, focused on intellectual property and free speech issues. She is a 1999 graduate of Harvard Law School and a 1996 graduate of Harvard College.

Click To Play Video

Mary Wong of Franklin Pierce Law Center joins Berkman Center guests, fellows, and staff to discuss the growing discourse around such topics as “the commons,” “free culture,” and “open content.”

Professor Wong addresses the extent to which these terms are rhetoric or signals of change; how “openness” can be stunted by lack of clarity in copyright standards; and what the future may hold in light of technological advancements.

Runtime: 1:03:04, size: 320×240, 183mb, QuickTime .mov, H.264 codec

Mary Wong of Franklin Pierce Law Center joins Berkman Center guests, fellows, and staff to discuss the growing discourse around such topics as “the commons,” “free culture,” and “open content.”

Download the audio podcast (time: 1:03:04).

Professor Wong addresses the extent to which these terms are rhetoric or signals of change; how “openness” can be stunted by lack of clarity in copyright standards; and what the future may hold in light of technological advancements.

The success of the blog in helping Internet users communicate is undeniable, but what happens when this medium is used not just to share ideas but to share music, too? The MP3 blog is a new and fast growing phenomenon that stretches our understanding of copryight, fair use, the purpose of a blog. Is the MP3 blog just a new version of filesharing, or is it a new medium that could transform the way we will listen to music in the future? AudioBerkman’s Benjamen Walker has this report (available for stream and download).

Download the MP3.

MP3 Blogs in the Piece

• Matthew’s fluxblog
• Sean’s Said the Grammophone
• Elaine Chang’s fruits of chaos

Other Good MP3 Blogs:

• The Tofu Hut
• The Mystical Beast
• The Catbird Seat

*Note, an earlier version of this piece, “Blog Jockeys,” also aired on the NPR show, On the Media.

AudioBerkman is licensed under a Creative Commons license.