Berkman Buzz: Week of June 9, 2008

June 13, 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 University

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*Max Weinstein comments on proposed anti-spyware legislation
*Zack McCune introduces us to "Intern Hour" on the new Berkman intern blog
*John Palfrey just finished reading The Future of Reputation on his Kindle
*Harry Lewis takes a year-in-review look at copyright at Harvard
*Persephone Miel gives us a glimpse at the Future of Civic Media conference at MIT
*David Weinberger live blogs Anne Balsamo's talk at the Berkman luncheon series
*Weekly Global Voices: "Russia: Freedom of the Press"
*Weekly Publius essay: "Daithí Mac Síthigh: The Right to Communicate"

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The full buzz.

"A U.S. Senate hearing was scheduled today to hear testimony on the issue of spyware, with the conversation focused primarily around the Counter Spy Act of 2007, proposed last year by Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor.  The bill provides some very specific definitions of prohibited behavior and grants explicit power to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce compliance. It also increases the penalties available to the FTC.  Last year, there was some discussion of this legislation and similar laws that passed the House. StopBadware.org even weighed in with some thoughts of its own..."
Max Weinstein, "Senate hears testimony on spyware"

"Things started out with what must be the 8th round of personal introductions. But nobody minded as there were new faces, and it provided yet another opportunity for the interns to learn one another’s names.  At least that’s what I was used it for.  After a brief note on tagging relevant material for delicious, and a reminder that by next week the intern community must decide upon the summer’s group trip, Carolina Rossini of Copyright for Librarians spoke up. She explained that her project had recently realized some common ground with two other groups, the Digital Natives project, and Adam Holland’s work with Lewis Hyde. As a result, Rossini explained, the three groups now were working in tandem and had great collective energy that allowed for rich collaboration and support..."
Zack McCune for the Intern Blog, "Intern Hour #2: 'Cross-Pollination'"

"The first book I’ve read in full on my Amazon Kindle is Daniel Solove’s 'The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet.' It’s a book I’ve been meaning to read since it came out; it did not disappoint. I was glad to have the joint experience of reading a first full book on the Kindle and of enjoying Solove’s fine work in the process. Before I picked up 'The Future of Reputation,' Solove had already played an important part in my own thinking about online privacy..."
John Palfrey, "Daniel Solove's The Future of Reputation"


"'An act for the encouragement of learning,' read the original copyright statute, signed into law by George Washington in 1790. The Constitution stated the act’s single purpose: 'to promote the progress of science and useful arts' Copyright was a deal between individuals and society—authors got just enough monopoly rights to incentivize them to benefit society through their creativity. With digital copies cheap and perfect today, copyright law has been rewritten to amplify the power of parties already powerful enough to use it against the weak. This year at Harvard provided varied examples of the anti-educational misuse of copyright law..."
Harry Lewis, "Copyright Harvard 2008"

"Zero tolerance for hand-wringing here at the conference of Knight Digital Media Challenge winners, gathered today at MIT’s (in)famous Stata Center (aka the Gehry building). People here are doing stuff they love and excited to share it and learn about others. (warning - overcaffeinated amateur live blogging) Just now we’re doing 'speed-dating' 4 minutes each from folks who will then be available for small group continuation of the conversations (interesting format!): The appropriately silverhaired Jack Driscoll of Silver Stringers on community publishing efforts by youth and others, hosting offered by enlightened Italian newspaper now carries the papers of 7,400 schools..."
Persephone Miel, "Shiny happy people laughing (Knight@MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media)"

"Anne Balsamo from U of Southern California and the Annenberg School is giving a Berkman lunchtime talk, called 'Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work.' [Live blogging, paraphrasing. And Anne is talking about deep themes. So, these notes will be especially inadequate, as well as getting things wrong, missing stuff, etc.]  Her book touches on technological imagination (how we engage the materiality of the world), technological innovation, and the reworking of culture. She’s particularly interested in the importance of training the technological imagination..."
David Weinberger, "Berkman lunch: Anne Balsamo on Designing Culture"

"An interesting discussion on the freedom of the press in Russia took place in the New York Times' Russian-language LJ community: an article by Clifford J. Levy, translated into Russian, received over 1,000 comments from the Russian bloggers, and 45 of these comments were then translated into English and featured on the New York Times' web page, along with about 100 more reactions from the paper's Anglophone readers..."
Veronica Khokhlova for Global Voices, "Russia: Freedom of the Press"

"Lewis Hyde’s thoughtful essay on network neutrality and the trials of 18th-century preachers-without-pulpits is a timely reminder that the issue of net neutrality is not one that should be the sole business of a small group of Internet activists and lobbyists. It’s about time to acknowledge that, while increasingly vehement disagreements between economists on how to stimulate the development of broadband in the US are undoubtedly fun to watch, a broader conversation on the cultural and political impact of new technologies is slowly emerging from the confusion that is net neutrality..."
Daithí Mac Síthigh for the Publius Project, "The Right to Communicate"