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Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group

Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group

Donnie Hao Dong, Berkman Fellow; David Singh Grewal, Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and an Affiliated Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School; Mackenzie Cowell, Berkman Center Research Assistant

6:00 pm - 8:30 pm, Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Conference Room 202, Berkman Center
23 Everett St 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA
Please RSVP to Herkko Hietanen at herkko.hietanen@hiit.fi before 12/2/09
Refreshments provided

Donnie Hao Dong is a Fellow at Berkman Center and a Lecturer at Yunnan University (PRC). His research interests cover copyright law, cyber law and law and social development in digital age. He got a JSD from China University of Polictics and Law with his dissertation on the public domain in the context of Chinese copyright law. Now Donnie is a PhD Candidate in City University of Hong Kong closing his research on the lessons of Chinese copyright reform for digital age.  His publications, short essays and nags can be accessed at http://www.BLawgDog.com.

David Singh Grewal is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, and an Affiliated Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. His first book, Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization was published by Yale University Press in 2008. He holds a JD from Yale, and is currently completing his PhD in the Harvard Government department, where he is finishing his dissertation, "The Invention of the Economy." He is also on the board of the Biobricks Foundation, a non-profit working to develop an open-source platform for the emerging field of synthetic biology.

Mackenzie Cowell graduated from Davidson College with a BS in Biology in 2007 and currently works as a Research Assistant at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.  He is booting up a public biotech lab in Boston (bosslab.org). He tweets: @100ideas.

Donnie Dong will discuss his research on the justification of copyright protection in China. He will review the Chinese legislative history of copyright protection during the past hundred years, and draw the conclusion that the Chinese copyright law has been, and still is, justified with the utilitarian approach.  He thinks that this characteristic, rather than the difference between the respective legal systems, may be one of the reasons that cause the continous collision between the US copyright law and its Chinese counterpart in future.

David will examine the question of: Is there a way to bring "free culture" into biotechnology? His talk will explore one recent effort to do so: the creation of the Biobricks Public Agreement, a legal mechanism meant to assist the development of an open, shared platform in the emerging area of synthetic biology.
 

Mackenzie Cowell co-founded DIYbio.org after witnessing hundreds of undergraduate teams successfully design and build standardized biological parts and devices while competing in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, which Cowell helped organize at MIT from 2006-08.  DIYbio.org is now the center of a diverse and international community of people interested in amateur biotechnology, from artists to scientists to schoolchildren to garage entrepreneurs. In this presentation, Cowell will present some of the projects currently being developed by this community of non-institutional researchers. 

Followed by Open Discussion

The "Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group" is a forum for fellows and affiliates of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, Yale Law School Information Society Project, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University to discuss their ongoing research. Each session is focused on the peer review and discussion of current projects submitted by a presenter. Meeting alternatively at Harvard, MIT, Yale, the working group aims to expand the shared knowledge of young scholars by bringing together these preeminent centers of thought on issues confronting the information age. Discussion sessions are designed to facilitate advancements in the individual research of presenters and in turn encourage exposure among the participants to the multi-disciplinary features of the issues addressed by their own work.

Past Event
Dec 2, 2009
Time
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM