Berkman Buzz, week of November 5
BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
Week of November 5, 2007
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What's going on... take your pick or browse below.
* Wendy Seltzer in support of Oregon challenging the record industry.
* Open Net Initiative: Pakistan, Martial Law & the Internet.
* William McGeveran addresses Facebook’s new advertising techniques.
* Rebecca MacKinnon comments on the Congressional investigation of Yahoo!
* Urs Gasser discusses the future of the book.
* Citizen Media Law Podcast: News Media Clampdown in Pakistan; Sam Bayard Interview on Internet Solutions v. Marshall.
* Weekly Global Voice: Iran: Bloggers Back Political Prisoners.
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The full buzz.
“Standing up for student privacy, the University of Oregon has refused to identify ‘alleged infringers’ at record labels’ request. Unlike most universities, which have identified students, U of O recently moved to quash the labels’ discovery subpoena in Arista et al. v. Does 1-17. Ray Beckerman links the documents at Recording Industry vs The People. See also Associated Press. The university argues in its brief that the subpoena imposes an undue burden on the university ‘because it requires the University to affirmatively investigate potential copyright infringement by its users.’ Particularly on a campus, where a single IP address might be shared my multiple roommates, visitors, or users of an open access point, the IP address will not uniquely identify a person.”
Wendy Seltzer, “University of Oregon Stands up to Record Labels”
“When Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution on November 3 in Pakistan, the blogosphere and traditional media were quick to call it implementation of martial law. It has been widely reported that with emergency rule came a crackdown on both traditional media and Internet use. Restrictions on infrastructure have been reported. ABC news reported that at the time of the declaration, phone and Internet access were cut for a short period. Today, it was reported that phones were again cut at 13:45 local time, purportedly to interrupt a phone call between Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who has been under house arrest since the crisis began, and the lawyers who are protesting.”
Open Net Initiative, “Pakistan, Martial Law & the Internet”
“Dan Solove at Concurring Opinions has some quite sensible concerns about Facebook’s new advertising program — specifically, that it may violate privacy law. I think he’s right, and then some…In short, the new program allows corporations to set up Facebook pages where visitors who take certain actions can thereby trigger the sending of a “Social Ad” to their network of friends.”
William McGeveran, “Facebook inserting Users into Ads”
“On Tuesday, Yahoo's Jerry Yang and senior counsel Michael Callahan got yelled at in congress generally for their role in the jailing of journalist Shi Tao, and specifically for failing to give complete information in their 2006 testimony about the case. The LA Times coverage of the hearing includes embedded AP video of highlights from the grilling, including Jerry Yang's apology and Michael Callahan's regretful and apologetic explanation. Also see the Wall Street Journal's very thorough account. The House Foreign Affairs Committee website has full transcripts from Congressman Tom Lantos, Yang and Callahan plus a link to the webcast. All the negative attention has not been without cost to Yahoo. Its share price went down 5% on hearing day, and some reported that the hearing eclipsed the IPO of Alibaba, which now operates Yahoo's web services in China.”
Rebecca MacKinnon, “Yahoo! execs called moral ‘pygmies’ in Congress”
“Today, I attended a small, but really interesting conference chaired by my colleagues Professor Werner Wunderlich und Prof. Beat Schmid from the Institute for Media and Communication Management, our sister institute here at the Univ. of St. Gallen. The conference was on ‘The Future of the Gutenberg Galaxy’ and looked at trends and perspectives of the medium ‘book’. I’ve learned a big deal today about the current state of the book market and future scenarios from a terrific line-up of speakers. It was a particular pleasure, for instance, to meet Prof. Wulf D. von Lucus, who’s teaching at the Univ. of Hohenheim, but is also the Chairman of the Board of Carl Hanser Verlag, which will be publishing the German version of our forthcoming book Born Digital.”
Urs Gasser, “The Future of Books in the Digital Age: Conference Report”
“This week, David Ardia talks about threats to the Internet in Pakistan and Colin Rhinesmith speaks with Sam Bayard about a recent entry in our new legal threats database.”
CMLP, “News Media Clampdown in Pakistan; Sam Bayard on Internet Solutions v. Marshall”
“In recent weeks, the Iranian government has stepped up pressure against human rights and civil society activists. Some of these activists, including a former university professor and several syndicate and student activists, are in jail. Some were arrested because they visited a mass grave of their executed relatives earlier this year. Protests in Iran continue against this new wave of repression. Bloggers share news and ideas on these events.”
Hamid Tehrani, “Iran: Bloggers Back Political Prisoners”