Berkman Buzz, week of October 1
BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
Week of October 1, 2007.
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What's going on... take your pick or browse below.
*David Weinberger supports open access to Harvard faculty research
*Lawrence Lessig celebrates the first five years of Creative Commons
*Open Net Initiative: Bangladesh reportedly requiring ISPs to provide client, traffic information
*Urs Gasser presents Digital Natives research
*danah boyd criticizes a new wave of stifling contracts
*Citizen Media Law Project: Senate Judiciary Committee Endorses Federal Shield Bill
*Weekly Global Voice: Myanmar: List of Detainees and Letter From A 88 Generation Worker
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The full buzz.
"According to the Harvard Crimson, the Harvard Faculty of Arts & Sciences' governing body has proposed an open access policy according to which faculty members would make their research available for free either on a university site or on their own site. This would be in addition to publishing in academic journals, some of which charge $20,000 a year for a subscription. It'd be an opt-out program. The Harvard Crimson has a good editorial supporting it. Yay!"
David Weinberger, "Harvard moves towards Open Access scholarship"
"Five years ago this December, we launched Creative Commons. At a party with music by DJ Spooky, and video endorsements by John Perry Barlow and (the late) Jack Valenti, we began to implement a gaggle of legal hacks to let the copyright system better reflect the views of many artists, authors, educators, and scientists. Some of those ideas bombed. But the core flourished — far beyond the wildest dreams of any of us back then."
Lawrence Lessig, "Creative Commons at 5 years"
"According to E-Bangladesh, Bangladeshi authorities are now requiring ISPs to turn over various details about corporate clients as part of the ongoing battle with unlicensed VoIP providers. The 3rd world view follows the story, including additional information about the specific information ISPs are required to retain (and thus turn over) about clients. ONI's research into Internet filtering has highlighted the fact that filtering is often a 'slippery slope – even if censorship is initially limited to narrowly defined content, once an apparatus to carry out filtering is in place, it is easy to expand the use of that apparatus to contain the spread of other 'harmful' content."
Open Net Initiative, "Bangladesh reportedly requiring ISPs to provide client, traffic information"
"Here in Ottawa, I had the pleasure to speak at the OECD Technology Foresight Forum of the Information, Computer and Communications Policy Committee (ICCP) on the participative web – a forum aimed at contributing to the OECD Ministerial Meeting 'The Future of the Internet Economy' that will take place in Seoul, Korea, in June 2008."
Urs Gasser, "'Born Digital' and 'Digital Natives' Project Presented at OECD-Canada Foresight Forum"
"Much to my chagrin, most people do not seem to read the contracts that they sign. More horrifyingly, I'm watching as corporate lawyers increasingly introduce clauses that are manipulative at best, legal gag orders more often. I realize that most people don't read click-through agreements, but I would strongly encourage everyone to at least read employment contracts and NDAs, even the ones that look like click-throughs when you show up at a company to visit a friend for lunch."
danah boyd, "read those contracts!"
"The United States Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to endorse a bill that would give journalists a qualified privilege from having to testify in court about their confidential sources and disclose their news gathering materials. In a 15-2 vote, the committee sent the legislation, S. 2035, to the full Senate, where it is expected to face stiff opposition from Republican senators and the Bush administration. Presiding over the committee session, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT.) remarked: 'The time for needless delay of this legislation has passed. We simply have no idea how many newsworthy stories have gone unwritten and unreported out of fear that a reporter would be forced to reveal a source, or face jail time.'"
David Ardia, "Senate Judiciary Committee Endorses Federal Shield Bill"
"Blogger Niknayman has a list of names and affiliations of over 300 monks and civilians who have been arrested by the Myanmar Military Regime. Many are from the National League of Democracy, the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Newspapers across Asia are putting the number of detained people at 1500. Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norwegian organization reports that the number of arrested is much higher at over 2000. Death toll is rumoured to be in the hundreds, though the Myanmar Junta refuses to confirm the official number."
yangonthu, "Myanmar: List of Detainees and Letter From A 88 Generation Worker"