Berkman Buzz, week of July 23
BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School
*2007 Summer Doctoral Programme Edition*
Week of July 23, 2007
What's going on... take your pick or browse below.
*Ethan Zuckerman observes the SDP from an advisor’s perspective.
*Michael Zimmer seeks the perfect search engine.
*Joris van Hoboken looks back at the first week of SDP 2007.
*Ismael Peña-López examines global Internet filtering and censorship.
*Daithí Mac Síthigh heads to the MIT Media Lab.
*William McGeveran remarks on the benefits of teaching non-lawyers.
*Alla Zollers discusses Copyright 2010.
*Daithí Mac Síthigh reports on "the legacy of Lessig."
*All blogposts, photos, and more from the faculty and students that participated in the 2007 SDP are available online.
The full buzz.
“It’s summer, which - oddly enough - means that the Berkman Center is filled to bursting with students. Berkman is hosting the Summer Doctoral Program, an annual gathering for PhD students working on Internet-related topics, organized by the Oxford Internet Institute. The two-week session has been held three times in Oxford and once in Beijing. Rumor has it that my colleague Urs Gasser wanted to hold it at the University of St. Gallen this year, but had to cancel because his city was being re-carpeted.”
Ethan Zuckerman, “Summer doctoral program at Berkman”
“Today I gave an abbreviated presentation of my dissertation research at the OII Summer Doctoral Programme hosted by the Berkman Center. Along with a summary of the diss, my talk included a brief meta-discussion of both the challenges of engaging in value-conscious design with technical design communities, as well as a call for help on the next steps I need to take with this research, which included these three areas…”
Michael Zimmer, “SDP2007 Presentation: The Quest for the Perfect Search Engine”
“I am starting to enjoy myself better every day here in Cambridge, Ma. Yesterday was the last day of the first week of the Summer Doctoral Programme and a good one it was. We started off with a session about copyright - leads Brian Fitzgerald and Wendy Seltzer - focusing primarily on intermediary liability in the context of copyright infringement. I was looking forward to this session because of my dissertation I plan to deal with liability of search engine intermediaries as well. We talked about the Viacom- YouTube lawsuit and about different recent Perfect 10 cases in the United States.”
Joris van Hoboken, “One Full Summer Doctoral Week in Boston”
“Over the past five years, the incidence of Internet filtering has expanded from a small number of states, including China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, to well over thirty countries worldwide. While Internet filtering and content restrictions continue to grow in scope, scale and sophistication, censorship of the Internet broaches many unanswered questions, touching on legal, political, economic, social and ethical issues. Critics of filtering focus on the frequent collateral damage, the suppression of free speech as an infringement on human rights, the often tenuous legal status of filtering and the potential for negative impacts on economic and human development. For others, filtering is seen as an appropriate remedy for Internet content that is distasteful, disruptive, harmful or illegal.”
Ismael Peña-López, “OII SDP 2007 (III): Internet Filtering”
“Part 1 of our ‘field trip’ took in the Media Lab at MIT and a walk around the (sprawling, architecturally diverse) campus, which is not that far from Harvard. Talk about a knowledge cluster! Anyway, we were lucky enough to be brought into the Media Lab and to visit individual projects. Given my childish glee at ‘being there’, it was only appropriate that I chose to visit the Lifelong Kindergarten team, based in a true eAladdin’s Cave in the basement of the IM Pei-designed building.”
Daithí Mac Síthigh, “MIT: Media Lab, Stata Center, Press”
“In the last few days I’ve been at two gigs involving teaching about law to non-lawyers. It is an eye-opening and highly recommended experience. Last week I was on the faculty of the annual Summer Doctoral Programme sponsored by the Oxford Internet Institute and this year hosted in the U.S. by the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School. (That’s “Programme” as they spell it and “Center” as we spell it.) SDP is an intensive two-week seminar for doctoral candidates from all over the world studying the internet through a range of methodological approaches and disciplinary perspectives. Almost none are lawyers.”
William McGeveran, “Teaching Non-Lawyers”
“My favorite part of this discussion was when we broke up into three groups: the content industry, the company (ex Google), and the future. I was in the “future” section which was tasked with figuring out what the future of copyright ought to look like, in any terms including economic, social, or legal. My main contribution to this argument was that we should not erect barriers just to keep old business models.”
Alla Zollers, “OII Day 5”
“On Tuesday night, a group of us had a nice little side-event/chat on “the legacy of Lessig” (blurb here). This session - which was my proposal and my only real organisational contribution to the variety of ’self-organised’ events - took its lead from Lawrence Lessig’s statement: Required Reading - the next 10 years.”
Daithí Mac Síthigh, “The Legacy of Lessig”