Berkman Buzz: Week of May 5, 2008

May 09, 2008

Week of May 5, 2008

BERKMAN BUZZ:  A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations.  If you'd like to receive this by email, just sign up here. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School

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*Mong Palatino gives us the latest news from Myanmar
*John Palfrey discusses Harvard Law School's vote in favor open access
*David Ardia looks at copyright and the demise of  newspapers
*Payless pays more. Bill McGeveran explains
*The Internet & Democracy project examines local views on democracy in Kuwait
*Weekly Global Voices: "Bulgaria: Statehood in Crisis"
*Weekly Berkman@10: "Debating democratisation and the Internet"

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The Full Buzz

"First, an update on the situation in Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis hit the country a few days ago. The death toll continues to rise. The official report on the number of casualties is way below international estimates. The government is still placing the number of dead people around 23,000 while international aid groups believe the figure could now reach 100,000...'"
Global Voices, "Myanmar: Slow relief work"

"I’m just delighted that the Harvard Law School faculty has voted unanimously to adopt an open access policy. This policy is consistent with the policy adopted by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences earlier this year.  Here is what we approved: 'The Faculty of the Harvard Law School is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles...'"
John Palfrey, "HLS Goes Open Access, Unanimously"

"Neil Netanel, a highly regarded legal scholar, has an interesting post on Balkinization entitled "The Demise of Newspapers: Economics, Copyright, Free Speech." Netanel, who has written extensively on copyright issues, posits that part of the reason for the decline in newspapers stems from Internet competitors that build on the content and value that newspapers create. He suggests that imposing a statutory license or levy on commercial Internet service providers and news aggregators might be a workable solution for ensuring that newspapers receive compensation for their investment in quality reporting..."
David Ardia, "Copyright and the Demise of Newspapers"

"The Oregonian reports that Adidas won an astronomical $305 million trademark infringement verdict against discount retailer Payless Shoes this morning. Trademark blogger Marty Schwimmer can’t think of another infringement verdict even close to this size, and neither can I. Most trademark litigators would consider any case worth more than $25 million a very big one..."
Bill McGeveran "Payless and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day"

"The logic in a New York Times article that discusses concerns by Kuwaitis before Parliamentary elections that they are falling behind their neighbors economically because of their (limited, but growing) democratic institutions seems a bit off. Blaming a democratic political system for economic problems (slow growth , high unemployment, etc.) is unfortunately quite common in new or transitioning democracies. Before any election in any part of the world, the economy is often a leading, if not the top issue on voters minds..."
Internet & Democracy Project, "Too Much Democracy in Kuwait?"

"As minister Petkov was unwilling to resign, a blogger started a short story contest, asking contributors to describe a scenario that would end in the minister’s resignation. On April Fool’s Day, the most popular joke was that Rumen Petkov has indeed tendered his resignation. The teasing made people laugh and made them feel nervous, as they all were in tense expectation of what was going to happen...'"
Global Voices, "Bulgaria: Statehood in Crisis"

"This week, for the last in our series, we're linking to our colleagues and collaborators over at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) -- in the spirit of the (re)convergence of our far-flung network at the Berkman@10 events next week.  One year ago, the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) convened a conference, hosted by the OII, to discuss "The Future of Free Expression on the Internet" and to roll out the first global data set on Internet filtering, the raw materials with which Access Denied was built..."
Berkman@10, "Debating democratisation and the Internet"