12.05 - Internet & Society 2000 is now over. Thank you all for a great semester!

12.04 - Papers are in, the course is almost over. If you have any lingering questions regarding course requirements please read the FAQ again and then email ishelp@cyber.law.harvard.edu if your question is not answered there.

11.27 - INSTRUCTIONS FOR TURNING IN IS2000 PAPERS:

1/ Email an electronic copy of the paper to ishelp@cyber.law.harvard.edu by 5pm on Wednesday, November 29th.

2/ Submit a single hard copy of your paper to Professor Zittrain's assistant, Sara Hathaway in Griswold 505 no later than 5pm on Wednesday, November 29th. All papers must have a cover sheet including the names of all students responsible for the paper.

3/ Direct all questions related to submission of papers to ishelp@cyber.law.harvard.edu with "Paper Question" as the subject line.

11.21 - The readings for the student-led class on comparative cyberlaw are now available online in the readings section of the website. The rotisserie question for this week is optional. It is for glory not credit. Note also that it will not operate on the regular schedule. Answers may be submitted until Monday, November 27th at 4:00pm. It will not crank. Enjoy Thanksgiving break!

11.20 - There are new readings at the distribution center for the student-prepared class on comparative cyberlaw on the Monday afternoon (the day after the end of Thanksgiving break). They will also be available online soon. There will be an optional rotisserie question that can be submitted by Monday at noon and will not reverberate.

11.15 - You will all have noticed that the rotisserie question has not yet been posted this week. It will be posted and sent out to you by email soon. You will have extended time to answer the question.

11.10 - Remember that there is NO CLASS on Monday, November 13th. For those of you who are interested, tune in to the webcasts the Berkman Center is doing from the ICANN meetings in LA. On Sunday the Berkman Center is doing a full afternoon of moderated panel discussions on issues facing ICANN. Professor Zittrain will be moderating a panel on New TLDs at 4:30pm (PST). Tune in to the webcast on Wednesday and Thursday to see ICANN in action.

11.6 - Welcome back from fly-out week. Please make sure that you have the new readings which are available at the distribution center and on the website.

10.16 - We are using the remote comment system today. Click here to ask a question.

10.10 - McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission is an interesting case on the topic of anonymous speech which relates to the course topics this week.

10.3 - Paper proposals are due as part of the rotisserie answers this week.

9.19 - Paper proposals are due in two weeks. Students seeking other students with whom to write the paper may want to use the discussion set up for this purpose in the discussion area.

9.19 - Remember to answer the new rotisserie questions by Sunday, September 24 at 5:00 pm.

9.18 - Responses to the responses of other students are due on Tuesday at Noon. They should be thoughtful and need not be lengthy.

9.18 - Panel assignments for September 25 and 26 have been emailed to the panelists. If you have not received an email, you are not on panel.

9.12 - Mentors are available through the Berkman Center Clinical Program to help advise you in choosing a paper topic and working on your papers. If you are interested, please check out the bios of the mentors.

9.11 - The rotisserie has begun. If you have not registered for the courseware you must do so by Tuesday at noon. Visit the courseware page to register, log in, and submit rotisserie answers to the courseware.

9.11 - Panel assignments for Monday, Sept. 18 and Tuesday, Sept 13 have been emailed to panelists. If you have not received an email, you are not on panel.

9.05 - Panel assignments for Monday, Sept. 11 and Tuesday, Sept. 12 are posted in the discussion area of the site. Assignments for the rest of the semester will be available in the discussion area soon. If you cannot participate on panel for your assigned day, please email the teaching fellows at ishelp@cyber.law.harvard.edu. For more information on requirements for panels and panel assignments please see the FAQ.

9.05 - A first round of responses has gone out to all those who applied to the course by late Monday evening. If you applied to this course before then and have not heard anything, please send an email to is2000@cyber.law.harvard.edu explaining the situation. If you have been accepted into the course, you must formally enroll with the HLS registrar today. The first session is Tuesday, Sept. 5, in Austin West from 4:20-5:50.

8.18 - IS2K is now accepting applications for enrollment from Harvard Law School students and cross-registrants. Applications are available here.

8.18 - Clinical work is available in conjunction with IS2K. More information on the Berkman Center for Internet and Society clinical program is available here.

8.18 - For more information about the course please refer to the FAQ. You might also want to check out the web sites for earlier iterations of the course: I&S '99; I&S '98; I&S '97.




This course examines current legal, political, and technical struggles for control/ownership of the global Internet and its content. The course will draw upon a growing body of cyberlaw cases and commentary, class members’ research, and participation by invited guests, including lobbyists, politicians, journalists, and scholars from the HLS faculty and elsewhere.

Course themes include the interaction between emerging Internet self-governance regimes and rule by traditional sovereigns; the expression of conflicting interests of commercial and individual Internet speakers/broadcasters; new modes of control over widely distributed intellectual property (”privication”); and the potential for market giants and other architects of Internet technologies to constrain behavior online in ways governments find difficult to assimilate. Classroom discussion of these topics will be augmented by online discussion software through which students will have one-on-one exchanges about issues in the course. No specialized technical expertise or prerequisite required, but students should be prepared to use and experiment with new technologies as part of their coursework and participation.

Anticipated topics include:
Internet governance: How should policy be made­if at all­about changes to the structure of the Internet? Can the development of Internet architecture (for example, the assignment of domain names) be legitimately overseen by non-governmental bodies comprising competing power bases of the technical elite, business professionals, and individuals representing a global user constituency?

Making room for the little guy: The Internet is sometimes championed as an inexpensive medium for the “little guy” speaker. Indeed, protection of small, non-commercial speakers was an important justification for the Supreme Court’s 1997 invalidation of the Communications Decency Act. With or without 1998’s reprise of the Act, the voice of “little” speakers is readily fenced out by filters and proprietary forums. Should government act to ensure that some hypothetical Madisonian promise of the Internet is realized? Special emphasis will be placed on a developing debate over the extent to which private speech restrictions­-enforced by schemes as varied as collaborative junk email filtering and third-party content ratings systems­-can and should be scrutinized for their impact on free expression.

The sovereignty of technology: Intellectual property interests traditionally enforced through the courts are increasingly being guaranteed by technological means­computer programs that are impossible to duplicate and online books that can only be read once. Some claim that this new form of self-protection could distort the public policy balance between property and free expression represented within copyright law, while others see it as an uncontroversial (and in any event, justifiable) response to the increased threat to intellectual property protection posed by digital communications.