However, though Comcast said it will no longer (by the end of the year) discriminate based on traffic using the BitTorrent protocol, it’s unclear what this means for other types of traffic.

Michael Geist, Canada’s leading Internet law scholar, has posted on this new development on his blog. Bell Canada seems to claim that they are entitled to do this based on the usage contract. Already though, there are fears that this behavior is anti-competitive.

Looks like the Comcast battle will head north!

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences has passes a motion for Open Access to Scholarly Articles and Harvard Law School is considering a similar policy.

Junior faculty members consistently face the battle with tenure; the main requirement is to have an article published in a scholarly journal. Professors sometimes spend years waiting for an article to be published; one’s article must be accepted by a journal, peer reviewed and then published. Before being published an author must agree to a licensing agreement

Traditional Publishing Paradigm; author gives up copyright to journal

Stage 0: If the professor post working papers online. Most contracts restrict the author’s ability to direct students to working papers online. Well-accomplished journals will have contract that ensure that a previous work on the article cannot be made available author, but they are unable to control the SSRN.

Stage 1: Making of the License
Professor will give article along with rights to journal. In return author will receive intangible rewards including prestige and tenure.

Stage 2: Library buys article
Journal receives money from the library in return for a copy of the journal. Hardcopies are cheaper than online forms.

Stage 3: Professor 2 wants to use article for class
Journal receives money from the professor in return for allowing the professor to use it in his course pack.

Stage 4: Another author wants to put article in his book
Journal receives money from the author and the author is allowed to include the article in his or her book.

The traditional publishing paradigm benefits the journal much more than the professor. The market allows for the journals to conduct price discrimination. Journals are value added: they collect and present articles conveniently, have access to related work and know professor 2 in stage 3 for peer review. Faculty members have to pay for articles in stage 3 and are rarely allowed an allowance for their own article (Harvard Business School has recently allowed for authors to receive 100pdfs). While wealthy universities give allowances to their faculty for this purpose, sometimes students have to pay for the articles when buying for course packs. This is a case for journals ownership of knowledge.

University-Research relationship and Copyright law

Traditionally faculty is in work for hire contract. University split the money made off research, faculty remain happy and university will improve endowment and reputation. (Ex: Stanford benefiting from Google). As long as universities can assert rights from under copyright law, parties will usually bargain for a result that is beneficial for both parties. Although universities’ probably do not have rights to undergraduate work the line becomes fuzzy at the level of graduate work.

Open Access Grant Paradigm

Stage 1: License
Professor enters a contract with the university to grant licenses in return for the university giving the author access to the collection. University may make article open to the public. Old may still have control of the articles prior to Open access, but will not have exclusivity right to article not published under open access. All journals will have the same rights as before, but will reap less benefits then before

• Ex: FAS Open Access Agreement
o Nonexclusive (grant to as many people as the university wants and does not exclude journals)
o Worldwide
o Paid up (no additional consideration)
o Irrevocable (once the author contract with university: he or she may not take it back)
o Restriction on grant: right to distribute except for profit (exception under stage 3, where the professor uses an article in course pack)

Stage 2: Libraries
Libraries will continue to pay for journals, because they will be unable to receive the all the articles through open access. As open access grows, journals will receive less income from hard and soft copies.

Stage 3: Professor 2
Professor 2 will not longer be paying for open access articles in course packs

Scenario 1: Faulty may opt-out of Open Access under FAS and proposed HLS agreements

Some non-tenured professor may want to be published in elite distinguished articles and have the option to opt-out of open access. Deans want to keep their faculty happy and are glad to have there article published in elite journals A problem may arise if the dean does not want the article published in a particular journal. JP ask is this automatic waiver better and does this action violate the reasoning behind open access? Is the waiver better, because it saves on transaction cost? Is it easier for Harvard to take this stance because Harvard has prestige, that elite journals consider their value added.

Scenario 2: The effects of every faculty having open access

Will elite market-leading journals go out of business?

JP and class say no. Rather these journals will create a new business model. They may not be able to reap the benefits from owning the exclusive rights to articles, but they will still have exclusive rights to older articles. The Value Added that is intrinsic in journals remains: journals are a gateway and filter that separates the good from so-so articles through peer review. Elite journals may begin to compensate peer-reviewers, this may create overzealous reviewers and a push for more profitable work, but maintaining a good reputation of brand and of profession can combat these two pitfalls. A related example is CNN, Fox and MSNBC remaining in world full of bloggers. Although Carl Malamud is preparing a database the will put an end to companies profiting off of free government documents.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Malamu…). Another alternative suggested is for elite journals to create scarcity as it relates to the relationship; professors may only peer review for certain journals. (For more understanding of compensation read Fischer Chapter 6 alternative compensation system).

Scholarly Societies

Forces Societies to focus on receiving income from conferences rather than journal.

Open Access Grant Paradigm for Harvard Law School

The difference between FAS and HLS is that law journals are mostly student run.

Stage 1: License
Law Journals receive several variations on the amount of rights they receive. Some journals may have exclusivity right for a year. While other produce a hard copy, sell a soft copy to an online index and put up a free copy on their website. In return professors receive subciters and prestige. In addition both side receive the features above in Stage 1 of Open Access Grant Paradigm.

Stage 2: Libraries
Law Journals receive money from the libraries when they buy hard copies or buy a access to an online index. In addition both side receive the features above in Stage 2 of Open Access Grant Paradigm.

Stage 3: Prof 2
If a professor is not a member of the open access community and the university has not opened the article to the public, the rate of the article is set by the law journal and determine by size and scope of distribution
How Does Open Access Affect Law Journals?

Considering the fact that most law journals immediately put up a free online version following release, the affect is small. Law Journals can still sell to indexes, because they make it easier for customers to access more articles through archiving and creating classifications. Law Journals have other sources of income. (Example: Harvard Law Review and the Bluebook and other journals have sponsors)

Arguments Against Open Access and Questions Remaining (by JP and the class)
• Could seriously damage student journals
o Smaller and newer journals who make money strictly off of book sales
• Law Reviews may require professors to submit waiver along with article, therefore they will not accept some articles
• Irrevocable
o What if some publisher wants to put an article into a book that he will sell for profit, but will not include article if he cannot reap the benefit
• Is there a problem with professors deciding to opt-out
o Will professors be judged on decision?
• Why do we need Open Access if most law journals already have online?
o Is there a values in saying that we want information to be free, to encourage other fields to do the same
• Want a deposit of knowledge

Further Reading
Jean-Nicolas Druey, “Information Cannot be Owned.” (an argument for free information)
Open Access for HLS http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/scholaracce…

Anthony Ciolli (an officer of autoadmit but apparently not a moderator?) has counter-sued Reputation Defender and a bunch of others in state court in Pennsylvania. Complaint available here.

Analysis and more after the jump.

I’ve only briefly read the complaint but the jist of it seems to be two main sets of claims. First he is suing the lawyers that had previously sued him (allegedly without any cause or good faith). Defendants in that action include some big names — Keker & Van Nest, and Prof. Lemley of Stanford Law.

The other set of claims are against Reputation Defender and Irvani & Heller (two of the women who had sued Ciolli and others). The claims there, in addition to libel, slander, and false light also include a claim of tortious interference with contractual relations. In addition to their public comments about Ciolli they apparently also engaged in a letter writing campaign to find out where he was going to work after graduation and then pressured his employer (successfully) into revoking his offer.

Hard to say where all this will play out. It may just be a legal maneuver to counter everything that has happened to him, but on the other hand most of that seems to have run its course and this is the first substantial shot back at Reputation Defender.

As to the web it certainly raises some interesting questions for the approach of a place like Reputation Defender. While they want to be aggressive on behalf of their clients one would think that they should be held to at least the same standard they would want to hold others to when they fight back. One might even be able to say that they should know better since this is their business after all.

Either way, it should be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

So far story is up at:

Above the Law

WSJ Law Blog 

C. Adelstein: Where is the line between good and bad discrimination?

BT: I know it when I see it, and Comcast is bad.

P. Bennett: There wasn’t any data from Comcast. But, discrimination might be ok when the network is crowded, but it isn’t ok when it isn’t crowded.

P. Clark: If the network is spoofing packets that look they come from somewhere else that seems particularly troublesome.

Smyers: When there is industry consensus on a solution we don’t need to look any deeper. But when solutions don’t comply with industry standards then it needs a deeper look.

4:22 – C. Cobb: We don’t even have the questions, so how can we have the answers?

C. Martin: If we do not have enough information, should we not take any action? P. Clark: Some disclosure might be good and start a dialog with industry. We also do know enough about the current actions to decide if they violate the IPS or not.

C. Adelstein: Are our network management practices having an impact on innovation here? A: There is a lot going on in Asia now.

P. Clark: The networks today contain ways of regulating traffic. The Comcast response is a very nuanced response to traffic. The network today allows me to go really fast when nobody else is there (this is good), but then when lots of people are there I need to slow down. The question is thus how should we slow down when we have to b/c it isn’t feasible to build a network where we can all always go at full speed.

4:14 - P. Weitzner: If the IETF or other technologist can’t solve these problems I don’t know how else they would be solved. Could the FCC wave a wand and do it? Probably not.

P. Bennett: But standards bodies are very slow. Comcast should be out experimenting so that the standards bodies have data to look at.

Smyers (Sony): Companies do and must experiment so that solutions can be fully vetted. However, if one company finds a problem the solutions still need to be deployed broadly across the network.

C. Cobb: Do we have enough information to figure out what the right solutions are? Profs: No. Also, we don’t have very good data and the ISPs don’t want to share it with us.

P. Clark: It is very hard to do research here b/c we can’t get data, even under a NDA.

4:05 - P. Clark: I don’t like discrimination on the basis of the application. Rather I’d have discrimination that is chosen by the user (how do users do this?).

C. Martin: Does BT take advantage of the way that networks (cable?) are designed right now? BT: Protocol was designed to efficiently move files. Key is to not rely on a single server, wasn’t designed to fill a network.

3:57 - Back to questions…

C. Martin: Should we investigate usage caps over time? P. Clark: Yes, you need to be careful, but we should recognize that there are costs associated with usage. This allows ISPs to have a positive engagement with customers instead of a negative one. This is similar to the way things work in wireless.

P. Clark: The models don’t work very well. How do we quantify what is acceptable congestion? This is hard and Comcast has tried to say that it is what doesn’t interfere with others. How do we impose fairness among users? Nobody can send bits faster than anyone else at the same time (this is the historical approach). There has to be some way to deal with congestion.

3:48 - Video Comments

3:46 - Starting in on some more questions…

P. Reed: Back in the day (mid 90s?) people said that we shouldn’t pave the world with one-way streets. However, we ended up being pragmatic.

3:32 – Last panelist:

Scott Smyers, SVP, Sony – Is there competition in the video marketplace? Yes, but it is different that many people think. Internet video can be transformative and lots of other companies agree with us about this.

The internet drastically reduces the barriers of entry. These issues are complex. What is clear to Sony is that we need to think about how we use the internet to distribute video. Super bonus points for only being 20 seconds overtime.

C. McDowell: If there is congestion, the internet has ways or working around it? BT: Yes. C. McDowell: If we increase disclosure would that be good? BT: BT is run much like an open standard so we are already disclosing the limitations of our application.

3:14

Eric Klinker, Chief Technology Officer, BitTorrent - Why does BT exist? It was invented in 2001 to solve an emerging problem of efficiently moving large files. Since then online media has exploded.

Who is served by BT? Any budget conscious organization, BT reduces the cost of publication. (BT also makes screens go up and down… or something).

David P. Reed, Adjunct Professor, MIT – Disclosure is important for understanding what is going on. Comcast’s secret action suggests a need for stronger intervention when we have a duopoly or monopoly market.

He is doing some sort of demo with an envelope. Envelopes have addresses and content inside of them. (seriously, I can’t make this stuff up). Content is meaningful only to sending and receiving host. The internet is a best-efforts network. But when congestion becomes extreme you discard some envelopes. (Ok, I get this now).

Solutions for congestions only work when they are implemented internet wide. The IETF does things like this (aww yeah IETF shout-out!). Techniques that look inside of packets are bad (and this is what comcast does).

2:55

Daniel Weitzner, MIT - Doesn’t want to use the term net neutrality. We’ll give him that one for free but let’s see if he can manage that.

The web is already very much P2P. (Some might call that generative. P. Benkler mentioned layers early, but I haven’t heard anyone talk about generativity yet. I am hoping that we’ll see it here!)

Richard Bennett, Network Architect - An engineer (yay!). The internet needs some management in order to function, otherwise it would fail. Different kinds of traffic require different things of the network. It is reasonable to take low bw, low jitter, traffic and give it priority (i.e. VoIP).

If we want a non-discriminatory internet then we’d lose a lot of things. The implications from adopting rules against discrimination would be very bad. Let the market and engineers figure out how to deal with the problem of congestion.

Dr. David Clark, MIT – If lawyers will talk about technology, I’ll talk about pricing (and a wikipedia joke!). Something needs to give in this market… we should have pricing based on how much you use — the all you can eat model just isn’t sustainable.

Limiting is bad when the ISPs choose what is given what priority. But some discrimination is needed.

2:53 – C. McDowell (also know as the funny one) will have to leave early. Maybe.

Ok, getting started back up again. I’ll try to apply a bit more of a filter this time around — less transcription, more comments. Who knows if that’ll actually work.

2:51 - Totally spoke to soon. Some more blogs about what is going on are all listed here so I’m not going to bother even trying to duplicate the good job that they are doing.

Also, some photos are up here.

2:45 - Well that sure was a long 15 minutes. At least there is room to breathe in here again, and I managed to snag a real seat, no more (not so) soft wall for me!

Commissioners are starting to come back in so we might actually be getting started soon. My apologizes for the spelling in here, Firefox is refusing to play nice with Wordpress and as a result I don’t have easy spellcheck!

(edit, to many acronyms… got that fixed)

2:18 - Really break for lunch.

2:13 - 15 minute break for lunch (which will make us only 15 mins behind schedule but also very hungy).

Oh wait, two more questions from C. Martin. Does the FCC have the authority to enforce network neutrality principles? Verizon: Yes, the FCC has asserted it. Comcast: IPS isn’t enforceable. FCC doesn’t have authority to impose a fine right now.

2:09 – Only network operator can provide VoIP in Korea for example. There are good stories and bad stories about Asia. P. Yoo: They do network management in Europe and Asia even though they have more bandwidth.

1:51 – Justice Scalia’s Pizza Delivery Model? Ok that sounds cool but what is it? Help please!

P. Wu: We can have non-discrimination system, it is just going to be expensive. Problem is that 500 people share a node that can’t handle 500 operating at max lawful speed. This becomes very expensive. Thus network management is a way to build out to rural areas more efficiently. The public safety solution at 700 MHz is similar.

P. Wu: There is some discrimination going on all the time. That is ok. But what is dangerous is having the carriers pick and choose certain applications. Anti-competitive discrimination is bad.

C. McDowell(aka the funny one apparently): Does the BT style of P2P cause customers to consume more bandwidth than they are paying for? Comcast: P2P during network congestion cause degradation that is a violation of our usage policy. We don’t sell a particular amount of bandwidth. We provide a service up to a certain amount subject to condition that customer doesn’t degrade other customers.

C. McDowell: If lots of people in my neighborhood want to use BT am I exceeding my limits? Comcast: You are exceeding what you contracted for.

C. McDowell: Discrimination is sometimes ok, but we need to be concerned about is anti-competitive discrimination. FP: This would be less of a concern if it wasn’t anti-competitive, but it would still have negative effects that are important.

C. Far SL: What would happen if you didn’t do what you do? Comcast: Everyone would feel a degradation in their service. BT users might not even see a difference b/c of the resulting congestion.

P. Benkler: Simple requirement of disclosure might not be enough…

1:33 - More Questions. Last entry was getting far to long. So more of it.

Good debate between Comcast and FP about if this is just delaying or blocking. Comcast noting the failure of the AP experiment (was only going after one computer). BT the way it is denied to be used isn’t noticably degraded.

P. Wu: Comcast is violating Principle 2. Comcast: No we aren’t.

P. Benkler: Problem is that this delay is blocking when it stops only a particular type of application. (I’m not sure about that… it is just a certain type of discrimination).

C. Tate: Are there other complaints than are here? FP: We had lots of complaints but we only have evidence of interference re: BT (and ya know, Comcast doesn’t disclose). Comcast: Customer reaction has been positive more than negative. We block spam and viruses to maintain service levels.

C. Tate becomes the first person to drop the privacy bomb. Asks, FP if what they want is more than traditional limits on common carries? C. Tate: Can’t this be solved with just disclosure? FP: But that isn’t what the IPS says.

12:51 - Panel One Questions.

Chairman Martin: Did NSF disclose they would limit? P. Yoo: Not sure.

Chairman Martin: Did Comcast deny until they were caught? Free Press: Yes. What we want is more disclosure.

P. Wu: Transparency is the beginning of consumer choice. We know more about bananas than we do about our internet. P. Yoo agrees with P. Wu. The gov’t should require more disclosure (like the SEC).

Chairman Martin: FCC should require Comcast to disclose? Free Press: Yes, but we also need to prevent discrimination b/c we have a weak duopoly (or even monopoly in many places). P. Benkler agrees (which is good since he made the point earlier).

Verizon (?) agrees that they should disclose, some consumers want lots of info, some don’t. Also, we can’t compromise network security.

Chairman Martin: Have any people exceeded their limits? FP: No.

Chairman Martin: When people do more that is good… but why sell all you can eat? Comcast: We aren’t restraining people from using the service in the way we are selling it. It is always sold as a shared network and we disclose that people can’t use it in ways that harm other users. Our APU and FAQ disclose this. FP thinks that this isn’t enough info for application creators to understand and work around.

C. Copps: We are paying a price for the lack of a national broadband strategy. FP: In this country companies don’t have to compete and thus can profit off of scarcity. Traffic grows at 40% per year but networks don’t upgrade for this. If we had competition it would be good, but we don’t.

C. Copps: What are other countries doing to deal with these problems? FP: Lots of different things, Korea has subsidies. Other countries have different approaches.

C. Adelstein: We have an infrastructure problem here. Does Verizon do the same things as Comcast? Verizon: We don’t use reset packets, we don’t have a shared network architecture like cable does.

C. Adelstein: Is Comcast delaying or blocking? Comcast: We do not block anything (period). What we are doing is a limited form of network management during limited periods.

FB: You can believe that Comcast or you can’t (cause they lied before). Studies show that if you delay something this is effectively blocking.

12:12 - Panel One. Going it alphabetical order. Because discriminating on the basis of names is cool.

On a side note Congressman Markey is now on the side next me. But he has a chair. I’m totally jealous.

Panelist 1 – Free Press. P2P is used to share good stuff. Hollywood uses it, NASA uses it. Vuze is a competitive threat to Comcast. Disrupting P2P is anticompetitive. Want commission to note that networks can’t discriminate. Comcast argues that the RNM (reasonable network management) footnote swallows everything else.

Door #1, open internet, life is good. Door #2, closed internet, WW3 happens (yeah, so I was a debater, everything bad ends up causing WW3), etc.

Panelist 2 – Prof. Benkler. Two long term issues in internet policy. Internet is about users connnection to each other, not to providers. What we need is infrastructure, not unending rules. Web 2.0 is about people connecting to each other. Duopoly competition requires us to have have regulation that keeps networks open, down to the physical layer.

Unbundling and open access are the heart of the 96 Act. We however, have created a duoply structure that has created the worst of all possible worlds.

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 experince. 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!).

Panelist 5 – Tom Tauke, Verizon. Here to talk about short codes. Unsolicited text messages are bad (why exactly are we talking about this here?). I think that short codes are those things that American Idol uses to have you vote? Really, totally at a loss.

Political and issue advocacy campaigns should have short codes. This demonstrates how errors in the marketplace are disclosed (coming back to networks now).

Panelist 6 – Prof. Wu. YAHSO (Yet another Harvard Shout Out). Whatever RNM is it shouldn’t include blocking certain applications (but what about discrimination?). The greatest use for filtering was to sell tech to China. US has sold itself as the land of free speech, free internet, and freedom all around. That is why we should be a role model for open networks (the American Internet should be open and free!).

Panelist 7 – Professor Yoo. He has slides (sorry live listeners). A person who uses lots of bandwidth is fine when the network is empty, but if everyone wants to use it at the same time that is bad (sort of like rush hour). We are having a structural change from central servers to distributed servers. Problem is that our infrastructure was built for the first.

Can’t have just one solution, problems are hard. Not sure what is happening or what will happen in the future. NSF used to give priority to terminal sessions and limit file transfers. They did this to make a better experience for everyone. This is a tool in the kit. FCC shouldn’t take a tool out of the kit.

11:53 - Technology Demonstration Starting (only 8 mins behind schedule, not bad).

Gilles BianRosa, Chief Executive Officer, Vuze, Inc. (went to HBS, the Harvard love is strong around here).

Here to make a case for real transperancy. Work around the clock above a chinese restaurant (Silicon Valley is such a great place). Provide content from TV, Hollywood, and other places. What is really cool is that they have HD content.

Harvard has amazing broadband apparently (who would have guessed). Vuze also hosting content about this hearing. People want to watch long form (i.e. tv length) HD content. This includes streaming content.

Because network operators are interfering Vuze has to engage in a “cat and mouse game” with network operators. Agree that operators should protect their networks. But we need ground rules about what is reasonable network management.

P2P is here to stay and shouldn’t be discriminated or degraded in any way. Assurance of good faith is not enough. Can’t give carte blanche to network providers (it was funny, but you really had to hear it). Biggest problem is that they compete with comcast.

This isn’t a freeway on ramp. This is a horserace where comcast owns the track and a horse. So slowing another horse a few seconds is a big deal (I think I got that right?). The market should decide what services should win. Markets need ground rules to function correctly.

Questions -

Vuze is legal right? Yeah, totally.

People have bought certain bandwidth right? Yes, Vuze can’t give them more bandwidth than they could get otherwise.

Has Vuze had discussion with ISPs? Yes…

What is the characteristic here? US networks are asymmetric. This is different than most other places in the world. We need to understand the limitations so that we can build our product correctly.

Chairman Martin – All that is happening is that people are using what they have legally purchased. A: yes.

11:46 - Commissioner McDowell. Grandfather was born in Sommerville. No Harvard connection I guess. Apparently in 1890, when they didn’t have telephones!

New media economy has growing pains as we see new records for usage every year. America watched 9 billion (?) videos online in December — thanks WGA! YouTube alone takes more bandwidth than the whole internet did in 2000.

Gov’t can’t make decisions as fast as the private sector. Therefore network operators need the right incentives. New networks have to pay back investors. But consumers need the right to pull content of their choice at any time, on any device, etc.

Section 230 of the Communication Act (yay, the first real law source) — internet should be unfettered by federal or state regulation. Caused the FCC to adopt the IPS. The 4 Principles are subject to “reasonable network management”. We are here today to try and figure out what that means.

11:35 - Commissioner SL. Went to KSG instead of HLS (and apparently taught history at the college). Well I guess we can’t all be perfect.

The FTC has held its own hearing on Net Neutrality and it is about time we did the same. Another BT joke, not as funny as the first one.

We should have an internet bill of rights. We are endowed with the unalienable right to liberty on the internet. (That sounds cool. But what does that mean?) Openness is a fundamental requirement to take advantage of all that the internet can offer.

Allegations that have been made are serious. We need to find out more (and more love for the internet policy statement, IPS from here on out).

And again with the Internet Bill of Rights.

I see a few people coming in and out of the east side door…

11:31 - Commissioner (Far Stage Right), we should setup a common law-esque adjudication system to develop rules about the internet. Choice that are made should be made in public with gov’t, scholars, etc.

If anyone is any here and can see the name plates and let me know what they are that’d be great, I feel silly calling them Far SR, SR, Center, SL, and Far SL.

11:24 - Question to answer today. What providers are violating the Internet Policy Statement? Need to understand this issue so that the FCC can act appropriately.

Net Neutrality isn’t just a theoretical challenge, story about cell phone networks censoring text message. I never heard about that before.

11:22 - Room is at fire capacity. We are working on an overflow room. If they tell us more I’ll let you know.

Firefox is crashing every 20 seconds for me so I had to switch to ie. As a result I’m behind and this is a mess. My apologizes. I think all the people here must be clogging the interweb tubes.

11:16 – First Oscar joke, This shouldn’t be “No County for Old Bandwidth.”

And some red meat for the crowd, don’t want to turn Bit Torrent into Bit Trickle.

11:06- Opening comments from Chairman Markey. Highlights, this isn’t just Verizon’s or Comcast’s network. We lack competition. Competition is good (faster, cheaper, better!).

The live closed captioning is cool. There are some professors and lectures at HLS that could use that tech.

11:04 - Getting started “soon”. I see Professor Weinberg in the middle of the room about two rows back. Damn, he must have been here at 9 am.

Time stamps being brought to you by the Comcast cable box that I can see from where I am sitting!

10:50 – The Good News, this place is packed. The Bad News, I’m stuck sitting along the wall on the far stage right, but I do have a wall outlet over here so it isn’t a total loss!

If anyone else is here right now go ahead and post in the comments, of if you want to get me find me at kevs.parker on gtalk.

… the main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site’s domain name, should remove all traces of wikileaks from its servers.

The court also ordered that Dynadot should “prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court.”

Other orders included that the domain name be locked “to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar” to prevent changes being made to the site.

The site is apparently still available in other countries such as Belgium and India, though I think these must be localised versions. The site claims they couldn’t defend themselves at the hearing because they were only given hours notice.

BBC news story

EDIT: See Kparker’s comment below explaining that the site has just been removed from the DNS so it is still available if you know the IP (it is hosted in Sweden).

The Commission wants to extend the copyright period for music performers from 50 years to 95 years.

British stars like Cliff Richard and Roger Daltrey have been pushing for such a move, but the UK government has resisted changing the rules.

The Commission says it will also benefit less well known musicians.

BBC News Story

Times Online article

A: Many other users can reproduce the info and link to it.
JP: And the legal question is whether you can make someone liable for pointing to these nasty comments?
A: The repercussions are much broader because the site is public.
A: And it never goes away.
A: And that applies not only to the subjects of the defamation but to anyone who is involved in any way, including the host.
JP: It’s the difference between a river and a pool. If you overhear me say something, it’s gone in the river. If it’s online and you can search for it, it’s in the pool.
JP: ReputationDefender works in this space. These facts have given rise to a new industry.

A: One thing can be in multiple locations, raising jurisdictional questions.

A: Because there’s so much out there, defamatory postings may actually have less effect.

A: The transaction costs of spreading info are much lower.
JP: The cost of speech is almost zero. For whom else are the transaction costs lower?
A: The readers. The host.
JP: Maybe there’s a value to having slightly high transaction costs because it acts as a gate?
A: The lower costs means you can participate. You can be part of the story.
JP: Yes. Message diffusion takes on a different nature. And sometimes those messages get wrapped up in you. Maybe identity takes on a role here.
A: The person can respond exactly on the same page, not like if it were a printed pamphlet.
JP: Awesome. This is a read-write medium.
A: I’m interested in blogs where flame wars occur. E.g., a Yankees-RedSox site. In political flame wars, it can be who yells the loudest. People will keep repeating wrong info.
JP: What’s different about the Web?
A: The volume and the persistence.

A: It’s a question of authority. Anyone can say anything.
JP: This is a question about intermediaries: Who’s allowed to speak for whom? Dan Rather spoke for CBS.
A: The Internet makes it easier to know what’s been said about you, so you can respond faster.

JP: LT, what is the state of the law? Who do we hold liable?
LT: Generally the speakers. Not the intermediaries. Section 230 gives immunity to intermediaries.
JP: If it were a newspaper?
LT: They’d be liable.
JP: CraigsList has been found not liable for discriminatory ads that a newspaper would have been held liable for.

Then I lead the class in a discussion about whether friendship online is the same as offline. Is it possible? Is it the same? Most in the class think it’s possible. Some think the differences are negligible. Others think the differences are real. Conclusions (from my pov): 1. It can be difficult to identify differences and even harder to evaluate their significance; 2. Differences, possibly even small ones, can require us to think carefully about policy and software design decisions. [The discussion was more interesting than this preemptory summary. But I can't live-blog and lead a discussion simultaneously.]
Corinna di Gennaro, of the Berkman Center, who has been sitting in, says that research shows that friendships do occur. Her research shows bloggers are less likely to make online friends and meet friends offline compared to email lists and social networking sites. [Interesting!] [Tags: webdiff autoadmit friendship john_palfrey ]