Berkman Buzz: Week of March 8, 2010

BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
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What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.

* David Weinberger turns out an aphorism, expertly.
* Doc Searls responds to Pew's Future of the Internet IV survey.
* Ethan Zuckerman blogs John Wilbanks' talk on generativity in science.
* Herdict is looking for a few good sheep.
* Harry Lewis on the "madness" of criminal libel in France.
* Internet & Democracy chews changes from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
* CMLP reviews the copyright confusions of Walsh against Walsh.
* Chilling Effects tallies up "innocent infringer" damages.
* Future of the Internet updates the TiVo / EchoStar saga.
* A year ago in the Buzz: "Introducing MediaCloud"
* Weekly Global Voices: "Haiti: Two Months Later"

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The full buzz.

"Because of some talks I’m giving, I’ve been thinking about how to put the concrete effects the change in expertise has for the authority of business. I want to say that in the old days, we took expertise and authority as the last word about a topic. Increasingly, the value of expertise and authority is as the first word — the word that frames and initiates the discussion."
From David Weinberger's blog post [2b2k] Authority as having the first word

"Yet money can still be made with goods and services — even totally commodified ones. Amazon makes money with back-end Web services such as EC2 (computing) and S3 (data storage). Phone, cable and other carriers can make money with “dumb pipes” too. They are also in perfect positions to offer low-latency services directly to their many customers at homes and in businesses. All the carriers need to do is realize that there are benefits to incumbency other than charging monopoly rents."
From Doc Searls' blog post Futures of the Internet

"The truth is that the scientific world is far less generative than the digital space. He proposes three major obstacles to generativity: accessibility, ease of mastery, and tranferability. He points out that, as science has gotten more high tech, it’s far harder to master. The result is hyperspecialization: neuroanatomists don’t talk to neuroinformaticists… “and god help you if you cross species lines.” And so universities are making huge investments to try to encourage collaboration: MIT’s just build a $400 million building – the Cook Center – to force collaboration between cancer researchers… and predictably, researchers are fighting the mandate to move in and work together."
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post John Wilbanks on Science Commons, and generativity in science

"Want to help us spread the word about Herdict? We’re looking for a few good volunteers to become country leaders, especially for the following locales: Syria, China, Iran, Australia, Morocco, Turkey, Vietnam, Burma, Tunisia, UAE. Being a Herdict Country Leader requires an interest in Internet filtering (censorship), experience using social media, and a desire to create a strong network of Herdict users in your country or community."
From Jillian York's blog post for Herdict, Promote Herdict: Be a Country Leader!

"I have been thinking for awhile about the myriad ways in which we could wind up knowing less, not more, as a result of the digital explosion. So this will be the first in a series. Feel free to post or email others you’d like to suggest. The editor of the European Journal of International Law is going to stand trial in criminal court in France, because a book review on a web site associated with the journal displeased the author of the book. The book’s author demanded that the review be taken down; the editor wrote a thoughtful response, inviting the reviewer to alter his review if he wished, and inviting the author to post a comment of her own if she wished."
From Harry Lewis' blog post How We Could Know Less #1

"This morning the New York Times quotes a ’senior administration official’ who says that the US is set to relax sanctions against Iran, Syria and Cuba to allow US companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to allow downloads of personal Web-based services in those countries. Around the water cooler this morning, my colleague Jill York correctly pointed out that the article appears to conflate too many things together when it describes ‘Internet services’ that are currently banned, and that might be allowed as part of the planned waiver."
From Bruce Etling's blog post for Internet & Democracy, US Set to Relax Internet Restrictions Towards Iran, Syria and Cuba

"The campy video features musician and political supporter Joe Cantafio performing his take on the 1971 classic "Walk Away." Cantafio used the same, or substantially similar, music from the song to create “Lead the Way,” an ode to Walsh’s campaign. When Walsh the Rocker found out a Republican used his music as part of a campaign video, an entertaining—though misguided—discussion on copyright law began."
From Justin Silverman's blog post for the CMLP, Candidate Joe Walsh vs. Rocker Joe Walsh: A DMCA Knockout

"A second federal appeals court has now eviscerated the “innocent infringer” defense for copyright infringement, this time for residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The court concluded that, as long as a copyright notice appears on a physical CD somewhere, anyone who illegally downloads that music from the Internet is subject to the higher $750 statutory minimum damages; even if that person believed he or she had permission to download the material. In 2005, a different appeals court made a similar ruling affecting residents of Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana."
From David Abrams' blog post for Chilling Effects, Careful What You Download - What You Don’t Know Can Cost You

"The latest development in the story, from last week, is that the Federal Circuit has again affirmed that EchoStar needs to destroy the DVRs. The court didn’t directly review the merits of the order, but rejected EchoStar’s narrower claim that the order should be construed to allow other remedies other than remotely disabling the DVRs. EchoStar’s delay in implementing the bricking has resulted in a finding of contempt of court."
From Jonathan Zittrain and Elisabeth Oppenheimer's blog post, The end draws near(er) for EchoStar DVRs

"One of the questions Yochai and I have debated is whether cases of bloggers shaping the news agenda are common or rare. To answer this question, we’d need to track not just cases when bloggers succeed in propogating memes, but those cases where propogation fails. My guess is that looking for terms that are unusually common in specific blogs versus blogs or newspapers as a whole is one way to find these cases – someone at Powerline was hoping that Samir Kantar would become a major discussion point in talking about Obama’s engagement with Iran. It didn’t. Being able to identify these failures as well as successes is a first step towards understanding how ideas do and don’t move between blogs and mainstream media."
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post Introducing MediaCloud [originally included in the Berkman Buzz in March 2009]

"Today marks two months since the January 12 earthquake devastated Haiti - and even in the midst of other natural disasters, bloggers still seem to be struggling to come to grips with what this tragedy actually means for the people of a nation that is often referred to as “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” The day to day reality of post-quake life in Port-au-Prince and environs is markedly different from the glory days of Haiti's proud past, which HaitiAnalysis.com ably chronicles in this post by Mara Chinelli of CampusTimes.org..."
From Janine Mendes-Franco's blog post for Global Voices, Haiti: Two Months Later