Upcoming Events and Digital Media Roundup

BERKMAN CENTER FOR INTERNET & SOCIETY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
July 9, 2009 // Upcoming events and digital media

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[1] [TUESDAY 7/14/09] Berkman Center Luncheon Series on "Mapping the Global Commons: A Quantitative Perspective on Free Cultural Practice" with Giorgos Cheliotis (http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2009/07/cheliotis)

[2] [7/31/09] Alternative Approaches to Open Digital Libraries in the Shadow of the Google Book Search Settlement (http://cyber.harvard.edu/googlebooks/Main_Page)


[TUESDAY] BERKMAN LUNCHEON SERIES on MAPPING THE GLOBAL COMMONS
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7/14/09, 12:30 PM ET, Berkman Center Conference Room
RSVP is required for those attending in person (rsvp@cyber.harvard.edu).

Topic: Mapping the Global Commons: A Quantitative Perspective on Free Cultural Practice
Guest: Giorgos Cheliotis

Where in the world are people using Creative Commons licenses? How much content is licensed under Creative Commons and what are the individual, social and cultural factors that influence adoption? Also, what happens after content is made available for remixing under an open license? What kind of 'cultural flows' emerge from ad-hoc, large-scale remixing activity and how do these vary under different incentives for production? These are the questions I will attempt to sketch an answer for, combining data analysis, visualizations, and individual, qualitative perspectives.

To answer the questions about global Creative Commons adoption I will present some findings from the CC-Monitor project, initiated in Singapore and now in its third year with support from the National University of Singapore, CC, SSRC and the Ford Foundation. Most of the data is derived from the daily execution of a large number of search queries on Yahoo, Google and other search engines over a long period of time. In addition to raw data and visualizations, I will explain how we are trying to set up a wiki-based platform to annotate the data and add local perspectives on CC adoption and perception.

To answer the question regarding what happens after content is published online with a license that allows for reuse, I will present an analysis of content production patterns in the ccMixter online community which is focused on remixing CC-licensed music, either in the context of remixing contests, or in an ad-hoc, user-driven fashion. I will present some visualizations of large-scale remixing activity and show that the introduction of additional extrinsic incentives for production through the organization of contests can boost total output but has only marginal impact on the long-term growth of the community's creative core.

This event will be webcast live; for more information and a complete description, see the event web page: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2009/07/cheliotis


ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO OPEN DIGITAL LIBRARIES / GOOGLE BOOKS SETTLEMENT OPEN WORKSHOP
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7/31/09, All Day, Harvard Law School
Registration is required via http://cyber.harvard.edu/googlebooks/Main_Page

he proposed Google Book Search settlement creates the opportunity for unprecedented access by the public, scholars, libraries and others to a digital library containing millions of books assembled by major research libraries. But the settlement is controversial, in large part because this access is limited in major ways: instead of being truly open, this new digital library will be controlled by a single company, Google, and a newly created Book Rights Registry consisting of representatives of authors and publishers; it will include millions of so-called “orphan works” that cannot legally be included in any competing digitization and access effort, and it will be available to readers only in the United States. It need not have been this way.

This workshop seeks to bring a fresh, unique perspective to a complex and widely debated topic. It will focus not on the specific merits and demerits of the settlement itself, or the particular antitrust and privacy and other objections that have been raised. Instead, it will examine the idea of possible alternative universes and offer specific proposals for scenarios that may arise whether or not the settlement is approved . What can libraries, or universities, or non-profits, or Congress, do in the current landscape? And how might these possibilities help us to define a better world than the one that we have today and, more importantly, than the one that will exist if the Google settlement is approved in its current form? Regardless of what happens with respect to the Settlement, what alternative possibilities could lead to a richer, more open and better information ecosystem than the one we have today or might have tomorrow with the Settlement?

By exploring these alternatives, this workshop seeks, in the end, to help inform the debate over the Settlement and its terms and to illuminate some of the key policy considerations that are at stake. Its ultimate goal is to develop a series of options and proposals that could improve on the status quo in novel ways.

More information and registration here: http://cyber.harvard.edu/googlebooks/Main_Page


OTHER EVENTS OF NOTE
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[1] 8/14/09 Social Technology and Education Conference at Harvard University (http://www.socialtecheducation.com/)

[2] Call for Participation: Free Culture Research Workshop 2009 (http://cyber.harvard.edu/node/5486)


DIGITAL MEDIA: Watch and Listen
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Did you miss this week's luncheon talk? Catch up with Berkman videos, podcasts, pictures, and dig in to our archive at http://cyber.harvard.edu/interactive.

-BERKMAN LUNCHEON SERIES: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Amazon's Mechanical Turk with Berkman Fellow AARON SHAW (http://cyber.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheons/2009/07/shaw)

-CLUETRAIN @ 10: SO HOW'S UTOPIA WORKING OUT FOR YA? with DOC SEARLS, DAVID WEINBERGER, and JONATHAN ZITTRAIN (http://cyber.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2009/06/cluetrain)

-BERKMAN LUNCHEON SERIES: Changing the World of Changing the World: Pushing the Models of Online Organizing with BEN WIKLER of Avaaz.org (http://cyber.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheon/2009/06/wikler)


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The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University was founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. For more information, visit http://cyber.harvard.edu.