MediaBerkman

Is the fate of books a forgone conclusion? Will they just continue to make their way out of print and into digital form? This week’s guest, author Cory Doctorow, suggests that we might want to keep books in print for a little while longer. Not just out of nostalgia – but actually to protect the institution of copyright.

Cory Doctorow — a longtime supporter of remixing and free culture, who releases his books under Creative Commons licenses — now throws his weight behind copyright. Huh?

Find out what happens when books meet bits on this week’s Radio Berkman.

Listen:
or download

This week’s artists
Coconut Monkeyrocket – Accidental Beatnik
MorganTJ -Time Decay

The Reference Section:
Cory Blogs at BoingBoing
Cory in Toronto last week
David Weinberger posted a recent Broadband Strategy Week interview with Cory here
Download (or buy) Cory’s brand new book Makers

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See a partial transcript after the jump.

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This week Radio Berkman gave a hand to our pals at Spark in their interview with legal scholar, Berkman friend, and author of the recent article Against Transparency about the perils of open government. Check out the full interview with Lessig here, or listen to the whole show.

The “Walled Garden” is an oft-used metaphor to describe an area of the web that is somehow closed off – think AOL in the 90s, or any site that lives behind a paywall. To some, these areas of the net are exclusive avenues to brilliantly curated content. To others “Walled Gardens” are threats to the open nature of the net.

Elizabeth Goodman, a PhD student at the UC Berkeley School of Information and a design researcher with Intel, has taken the metaphor of the Garden back to its roots (so-to-speak), to see if we can’t reimagine web communities through the lens of these physical spaces.

Listen:
or download
…also in Ogg!

CC-licensed music this week:
Duckett – Another Girl (instrumental)
_ghost – Ice and Chilli

The Reference Section:
Elizabeth Goodman on the web
Audio and Video from Elizabeth’s recent talk on the Walled Garden metaphor

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See a partial transcript after the jump.

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There are few subjects more potentially divisive as the Free Culture Movement. Free Culture activists believe in a future in which people will be free to remix and distribute creative works like literature, movies, music, software, and images. These are the folks who can toss around phrases like ‘Free as in Speech versus Free as in Beer’ to illustrate distinctions in legal code.

A world where anyone can feel free to edit a photo, remix a song or video, or modify a piece of software without the constraint of excessive laws or artificial limits – sounds great, right? But it raises more questions than you might think.

Gabriella Coleman is an Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University who has given a lot of thought to the role of genre and piracy in how we might build a Free Culture that works.

She sat down with our guest host Elizabeth Stark for a word or two on some of the toughest questions facing Free Culture.

Listen:
or download
…also in Ogg!

CC-licensed music this week:
Scott Altham – Hear Us Now (poptastic mix)
_ghost – Ice and Chilli

The Reference Section:
Free Culture 2009 Research Workshop
Some key sentences from the Free Culture 2009 Research Workshop
Gabriella Coleman’s blog and twitter
Free Culture Movement
Students for Free Culture
Elizabeth Stark on Twitter

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See a partial transcript after the jump.

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It’s been a busy week at the Berkman Center, so we had to forgo a new podcast this week. But have no fear, we did not forget you! We dusted off a recent classic from our archive by popular demand: “Episode 124, What the Heck is a Commons?”

David Bollier, author of Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own, explains where the notion of the Commons came from, and how it is evolving in the digital age.

Enjoy, and we’ll see you next week!

Listen:
or download

See more info after the jump.

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Few dispute that the web will be the dominant medium of the 21st Century – swallowing whole newspapers, books, radio, television, and the cinema. And even as the web grows virtually – over a trillion unique urls and growing – it shrinks physically – from laptop, to netbook, from cell phone, to even tinier and ubiquitous communication devices.

The growth of the web seems radically different from that of television, radio, and newspapers. It seems like it was so grassroots, so rapid. But Professor W. Russell Neuman of the University of Michigan argues that to predict the growth of the web in the future we need to take a good hard look at just how those 20th Century technologies and infrastructures came to be so dominant.

So, what does history have to say about how this tiny little medium will grow?

Listen:
or download
…also in Ogg!

CC-licensed music this week:
Neurowaxx: Pop Circus
General Fuzz: Warm Steel

The Reference Section:
Russell Neuman’s bio
Russell Neuman’s research
Russell Neuman’s recent talk Theories of Media Evolution at the Berkman Center

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See a partial transcript after the jump.

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Author and Professor of Public Policy Viktor Mayer-Schönberger believes that digital memory is a little too perfect. Every word you post on the web, every picture, every video, tweet, and email is set in stone, archived, permanently findable. Like the proverbial elephant, the digital world doesn’t forget.

There are incredible benefits to this. And there might be consequences as well, ranging from invasion of privacy, to the impairment of human memory.

David Weinberger spoke with Viktor about some of these consequences, and how we might help our machines learn to forget.

Listen:
or download
…also in Ogg!

The Reference Section:
Viktor on the web
Viktor’s book Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age
A Full interview with Viktor on CBC’s Spark

CC-licensed music this week:
Neurowaxx: Carioca
Jaspertine: Pling

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See a partial transcript after the jump.

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Ownership structures for creative works – such as Copyright, Creative Commons, Fair Use, Public Domain – abound. This week, Kenneth Crews, the director of the Copyright Office at Columbia University, speaks with us about some of the distinctions, and the ways to make sure your work is protected as much or as little as possible.

Listen:
or download
…also in Ogg!

CC-licensed music this week:
Jaspertine: Pling
Greg Williams: Teagarden Blues and Rain

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See a partial transcript after the jump.

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Internet access. Anymore, it’s something many of us take for granted. Like water from the tap, power from the plug, outrageous outbursts from Kanye West. It’s there, it happens – why question it?

Sure, there’s a lot of buzz about broadband and net neutrality going on in Washington, and in Geek Caves around the country. But the Net users on Main Street haven’t yet hit a tipping point. The fact is, your average consumer’s web connection isn’t very fast or cheap. But it is just fast and cheap enough that they won’t question, complain, or demand better.

What is the ideal web? And how do we get past the consumer complacency to build it?

Well, Clay Shirky has some ideas. And we were lucky enough to get an exclusive with him on One Web Day earlier this week. Listen in as he lays out a few visions for the potential of the web.

Listen:
or download
…also in Ogg!

There was more from Clay than we could fit in this week’s podcast. Check out some extras from him on Radio Berkman Supreme: or download
…also in Ogg!

Reference Section:
Clay lives on the web here
Notes and audio from Clay’s talk at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School on Tuesday
Video from Clay’s talk last year at the Berkman Center

CC-licensed music this week:
Coconut Monkeyrocket: “Accidental Beatnik”
Podington Bear – Jackie and Floyd

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Radio Berkman is proud to announce a new collaboration with Spark, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s excellent radio show.

The program, hosted by Nora Young, brings together essays, stories, interviews, and experimental pieces exploring the fascinating intersections between technology and culture.

We’ve been a longtime fan of Spark’s podcast (click here to subscribe). Their shows cover a lot of the Berkman Center’s favorite ground (check out some of our favorite episodes here and here).

So this week take a listen to their most recent episode, and you’ll hear our story on NBC’s experience with digital pirates. Yarr!

Keep your ears peeled for more!