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Upcoming Events: Unpacking open data (11/25); The Eureka Myth: Creators, Innovators and Everyday Intellectual Property (12/2)

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Upcoming Events / Digital Media
November 19, 2014
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berkman luncheon series

Unpacking open data: power, politics and the influence of infrastructures

Tuesday, November 25, 12:30pm ET. This event will be webcast live.

berkman

Countries, states & cities across the globe are embracing the idea of 'open data': establishing platforms, portals and projects to share government managed data online for re-use. Yet, right now, the anticipated civic impacts of open data rarely materialise, and the gap between the promise and the reality of open data remains wide. This talk, drawing on a series of empirical studies of open data around the world, will question the ways in which changing regimes around data can reconfigure power and politics, and will explore the limits of current practice. It will consider opportunities to re-imagine the open data project, not merely as one of placing datasets online, but as one that can positively reshape the knowledge infrastructures of civic life.

Tim Davies is a social researcher with interests in civic participation and civic technologies. He has spent the last five years focussing on the development of the open government data landscape around the world, from his MSc work at the Oxford Internet Institute on Data and Democracy, the first major study of data.gov.uk, through to leading a 12-country study on the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries for the World Wide Web Foundation. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

berkman luncheon series

The Eureka Myth: Creators, Innovators and Everyday Intellectual Property

Tuesday, December 2, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

berkman

The book analyzes and elaborates upon a qualitative empirical study of artists, scientists, engineers, lawyers and businesspeople that investigates the motivations and mechanisms of creative and innovative activity in everyday professional life. Based on over fifty face-to-face interviews, the book centers on the stories told by interviewees describing how and why they create and innovate and whether or how IP law plays a role in their activities. The goal of the empirical project was to figure out how IP actually works in creative and innovative fields, as opposed to how we think or say it works (through formal law or legislative debate). Breaking new ground in its qualitative method examining the economic and cultural system of creative and innovative production, The Eureka Myth draws out new and surprising conclusions about the sometimes misinterpreted relationships between creativity, invention and intellectual property protections.

Professor Jessica Silbey's scholarship draws from her interdisciplinary background in the humanities and law. One of her interests is in intellectual property law, particularly in the investigation of "IP communities:" activities, groups and organizations with a particular creative or innovative focus. She studies the common and conflicting narratives within those communities in relation to intellectual property law and legal institutions that purport to regulate them. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

video/audio

Brad Smith and Jonathan Zittrain on Privacy, Surveillance, and Rebuilding Trust in Tech

berkman

One of the enduring issues in cyberspace is which laws apply to online activities. We see this most clearly today in the reaction to revelations about government surveillance: on one hand, individuals are increasingly seeking assurances that their content is protected from government overreach, while governments want to ensure they have access to information to enforce their laws, even if that content is stored outside their borders. We see this same tension in debates over privacy protection for data placed on line by consumers. Brad Smith -- Microsoft’s general counsel and executive vice president of Legal and Corporate Affairs -- and Jonathan Zittrain -- Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society -- explore the role of law in protecting our rights in the physical world online, the complementary roles of law and technology in achieving this protection, and the need for governments to come together so that companies (and customers) don’t face conflicting legal obligations. video/audio on YouTube>

video/audio

CopyrightX: Lessons from Networked Legal Education – A Discussion with Professor William Fisher

berkman

Professor William Fisher discusses his experiences in designing and teaching CopyrightX, a unique course that combines a traditional law school course with affiliated courses in other countries and an online course open to the public to provide instruction about copyright systems around the world as part of the Third Annual Peter Jaszi Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property. video/audio on American University's website>

CopyrightX is a networked course that explores the current law of copyright; the impact of that law on art, entertainment, and industry; and the ongoing debates concerning how the law should be reformed. Through a combination of recorded lectures, assigned readings, weekly seminars, live interactive webcasts, and online discussions, participants in the course examine and assess the ways in which the copyright system seeks to stimulate and regulate creative expression. The application for the CopyrightX online sections will run from Oct. 15 - Dec. 15. See CopyrightX:Sections for details.

Other Events of Note

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See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.