Syllabus

The Future of Copyright and Entertainment

• Alternative compensation and consumption models (Terry Fisher/Noank, anystreet, imeem, hulu, tip jars, the MPAA deal, girl talk; Gray Tuesday/downhill battle)
• RIAA case against individual file sharers as a strategic move
• Comparative/int’l angles

Changing trends in Consumption & Creation of Music and other Performance Art

Presenters: Joe Fishman, Miriam Weiler (perhaps there is some possibility of collaboration with those working on the Tenenbaum suit?)

Alternatives to iTunes for Access to Copyrighted Works

We are beginning to see more and more choices for where and how to get copyrighted music. Gone are the days when it was either download illegally on programs such as Limewire or pay for them on iTunes. There have been attempts at creating new marketplaces from scratch such as at Aimee Street, which lowers the cost of discovering new music by setting price according to download popularity. Then there has been Grooveshark, which charges for downloads from its user-uploaded library but actually gives a cut to the original uploader. And then we find the advertisement-driven revenue model creeping in, such as at Imeem, the third-most popular social networking site on the Internet as of August (behind only facebook and MySpace).

It's clear that the days of CD browsing at Tower Records are behind us. And while iTunes has been the one primarily filling the vacuum, the proliferation of web-based alternatives is making things interesting. Are any of these models likely to succeed? Are our methods of music consumption likely to have an impact on our methods of music production? And just where does the recording industry fit in to all of it?

Maybe John Buckman, from Magnatune?

Not sure how to integrate Fan Culture & Vidding into a broader discussion of changing consumption patterns of music?

Old Laws/New Media

Shubham Mukherjee, Debbie Rosenbaum, and Matt Sanchez (as noted above, collaboration with the "Changing Trends..." group? Are these separate topics warranting their own respective days?

How has new media affected traditional communications and media industries and challenged traditional law? How do we deal with the fact that there is little legal infrastructure that takes into account today's new media environments? Do we apply old laws to new technologies, or do we create new regulations? How can we create sound policy that aligns with both traditional legal and moral aspirations while according with today's technological realities?

This topic will aim to explore these general questions through the specific example of Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum, a federal file-sharing case the three of us are working on with Professor Charles Nesson, co-founder of the Berkman Center.

Speaker Ideas: Google Telecom Lawyer Rick Whitt or Google Antitrust lawyer Dana Wagner.

The Internet and Publication

Presenters: Gwen, Lee, Jon

The internet has completely changed the meaning of publication, and the relationship between print and digital media is continually evolving. The advent of the personal computer and the internet have changed the way information is assembled, distributed, managed, and digested in ways at least as dramatic and consequential as the advent of the printing press. How are traditional publishers coping with these changes? What new forms of publishing are made possible by the internet, and what challenges do they entail? --Gwen 16:34, 1 December 2008 (EST)

The Publication Process

Open Access Publishing

Addressing whether there actually seems to be a movement toward this model, and away from traditional science/tech publishing. What effects movement toward this model might have on quality, oversight, etc. of published articles. Also, discussion of business models/funding, problems with open access models, etc. And any copyright issues (to tie things back to law).

This can relate both to open access of full articles (as with PLoS) or single experiments/results (including Science Commons and like projects to both make the data available, and, perhaps more importantly, the technologies to make it available in usable form)

Would "open review" (instead of "peer review") work? Are there any models around? What about a Slashdot-style system of moderation and meta-moderation?

Yes, there is at least one example that I can think of. Lawrence Lessig published the first edition of his book Code in 1999. It came out in paper and ink. Several years later, in order to "translate" (his word) the book into a second edition, Lessig persuaded the publisher (Basic Books) to allow him to post the entire text of the first edition of the book on a wiki hosted by Jotspot. (The Wiki text was licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.) Lessig explains, "a team of 'chapter captains' helped facilitate a conversation about the text. There were some edits to the text itself, and many more valuable comments and criticisms. I then took that text as of the end of 2005 and added my own edits to produce this book." (Preface to Code version 2.0, x.) Code version 2.0 is the result of this collaborative editing process. It is available for purchase in paper and ink, for free as a PDF download, and also on a wiki hosted by Socialtext. --Gwen 15:45, 1 December 2008 (EST)

Collaborative and Customized Textbooks

Maybe also Harvard's new open access policy for academic work? (note that the Harvard Free Culture group is working on the matter - see The Weeler Declaration)

JZ described an innovative publication option with which Foundation Press seems willing to experiment: essentially, individual chapters are available independently from one another, giving instructors the freedom to custom build a text book that contains exactly their desired materials (no more, and no less), in the desired sequence. Assuming this model is technologically, legally, and financially feasible, what benefits and drawbacks does it entail? Possible risks might include a lack of completeness and/or organization in the materials ultimately acquired by students as well as the possibility that pedagogical emphasis is dictated by sociologically driven group trends rather than deliberately thoughtful decision making. --Gwen 15:57, 1 December 2008 (EST)

Self Publication

One of the biggest and most obvious changes wrought by the advent of the internet and PCs the ability of individuals to self-publish; it is now cheap, quick, and easy to reach a mass audience with one's own text, images, and sounds. The rise of blogging, Youtube, and other developments have further increased the ease of self-publication. I know that several scholars have studied the rise and impact of self publication opportunities, but I'm not sure what conclusions they've drawn or which of them might be interesting to bring in as a guest. Suggestions? --Gwen 16:09, 1 December 2008 (EST)

The Relationship Between Print and Digital Media

Google Book Search

What does the recent settlement between Google and the Authors Guild/American Association of Publishers regarding online accessibility of digitalized books mean? Many have hailed it for both improving access to knowledge by creating "the long dreamed of universal library" and for avoiding a judicial resolution that might have exposed antiquated aspects of US copyright law. But there may also be troubling aspects of having access to such a large and unique collection of content controlled by a single for-profit company (the agreement is non-exclusive to Google, but it may be difficult for a legitimate competitor to emerge, given Google's sizable first mover advantage).

Is this settlement optimal for all interested groups? Presumably it is for Google and the Authors Guild/AAP, but what about externalities for non-parties, such as the reading public? Is some sort of government intervention appropriate to ensure access to this "universal library"? What difference does it make, if any, that this "universal library" is operated by a private company reliant on many public university libraries?

The Shifting Role of Publishing Companies

As noted above under "Self Publication," the internet makes it very easy for individuals to make their work widely available. However, actually garnering a sizable audience or realizing a profit from one's work remains a greater challenge; it appears to be with respect to this step that the services of traditional publishers appear to retain some value. After all, publishing companies offer marketing channels and name recognition in addition to simply machines that print a books. Are traditional publishing companies threatened by the new forms of publishing that the internet makes possible? Are publishers better off battling the internet (for example, by emphasizing the superiority and reliability of their traditional services) or embracing it (for example, by offering digital and internet-based publication services)? --Gwen 16:16, 1 December 2008 (EST) Should the latter services and items -- such as ebooks, audiobooks in mp3 format, and Amazon Kindle -- be replacements for or compliments to printed books? --Gwen 07:32, 2 December 2008 (EST)

The Fate of Printed Materials

Will the internet cause the use of printed materials to decline to the point that printed materials become obsolete? Obsolescence is reality in my own experience with The Harvard Journal of Law and Technology (JOLT). JOLT publishes its articles online on its website, and it also publishes shorter and more timely posts online in its companion, the JOLT Digest. In addition to being available directly to any internet user, all JOLT articles are made available through legal research databases, including Westlaw and Lexis. Each semester, we order from our publisher (Hein) enormous boxes of the new issue in print, but we have no idea what to do with them. Even after giving away copies to our parents, there are still stacks and stacks of unwanted and unneeded paper copies, and a lighthearted dialogue about what to do with them has steadily taken over the dry erase board in our office. These printed copies of our journal are literally useless. --Gwen 16:32, 1 December 2008 (EST)

The way that readers encounter and digest information is vastly different in the context of printed materials and in the context of digital and online materials. These differences have consequences for both academic researchers and regular citizens in terms of both the kind of information an individual is exposed to and the way that the individual approaches those sources. If a dramatic shift away from printed media is happening, what other shifts does that entail for the way that people learn, synthesize, and evaluate information? --Gwen 16:45, 1 December 2008 (EST)

We talked about an interesting article relating to the topic of how digital media and the internet are affecting the way in which people read in JZ's 1L reading group. The article relates more to how the presentation of written material on the 'net (short and skimmable, links galore, etc.) is affecting the way we process information and our ability to read "long" pieces (ie. more than a page or so) without becoming distracted. It is a bit tangential to the specific discussion of the movement of print media onto digital form (since it mostly discusses the differences between the format of media in each of the forms), but is interesting regardless. Lbaker 08:55, 2 December 2008 (EST)

Possible Guests

• Google book digitization people and/or members of the authors guild
• Amazon Kindle people
• People from publishing companies doing offering innovative services, products, or editing processes involving the internet. (Does anybody know of such companies?)
• Someone who has studied self publication on the internet (names?)
• Someone who has studied reading habits in conjunction with the shift away from printed media (names?)
• Lessig? (he is probably more useful for a different topic)

Free and Open Source Software

Presenters: dulles,Ayelet (Maybe)

How can a dispersed, multilingual collection of coders working for free assemble something as complicated as a web browser, let alone an entire operating system? Open-source projects are famously free-wheeling, but different organizational models and tools have sprung up to solve these obstacles.

What are the forces that drive hackers to contribute to open source projects? What, if anything, can we learn from applying theories of gift economies to open source projects? Should we read Lewis Hyde's The Gift? (n.b. i may be motivated by my own desire to read the book -- dulles)

• Eric Raymond/OSI ?
• PJ/Groklaw
• Strategies and indemnities (e.g. SCO v. IBM)
• Questioning the foundations of the free software movement (i.e. the "four freedoms")[1] -- how much does access to the source code really matter anymore? Are there alternative theories (e.g. "generativity") that better capture the values at stake? Affero License? (Eben Moglen?)
• The organization/groups/cooperation questions: how do free software projects organize and govern themselves, and what broader lessons might be learned from it? (e.g. debian, IETF)

(This marks my initial claim to the topic, though I would be overjoyed to work with others - dulles)

Philanthropy/Causes/Cooperation via the Internet

Presenters: Rainer

When does it work, when does it not? and why?

Examples:

• Pledgebank
• Facebook Causes

People:

• Prof. Yochai Benkler
• Tom Steinberg

Of course there are a lot of custom-built tools for mobilizing people online to get things done in the real world. On the other hand, what about more general tools? We've all been invited, via Facebook, to join groups and attend events (the Obama campaign certainly made good use of this); is there a generalizable model here?

Facebook groups dedicated to particular causes remind me of the online petitions that began circulating widely via email about ten years ago: their effectiveness in accomplishing real world change--and even their visibility to individuals capable of affecting the desired changes--are dubious. Is the real purpose of these movements simply to make participants feel like they are being active and involved? What percentage of those who signed email petitions in the 1990s were aware that their signatures were unverifiable and that the widely-distributed emails were unlikely to be collated and submitted to an official authority? What expectations do participants in facebook group causes have for their involvement and its consequences? The facebook group causes are certainly more centralized and visible than the old email petitions, and they provide a better tool for identifying and communicating with supporters in order to mobilize them in an organized fashion. How often is such mobilization attempted, and with what degree of success? As a tool of online activism, is facebook a step forward from chain emails, is it a step in a different direction, or does it just serve the same old functions but in newer packaging? --Gwen 08:26, 29 November 2008 (EST)

Maybe we can invite some of the leaders of the various social networking sites or Jascha Franklin-Hodge, who was an architect of the Obama campaign's use of social technology.

Might also be worth considering SMS applications that interface with the internet in this context especially since cell phones will presumably be the nexus of tech activism in the developing world. See FrontlineSMS or Ushahidi, a web crisis mapping project that let any user with a cell phone text in reports of violence in post-election Kenya as a way to geographically report real-time citizen reporting. (ELANA)

Meta-Pundit

Presenters: Conor Kennedy

PREMISE

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, web-only advertisements helped to shape the talking points of media personalities like Chris Matthews , Keith Olbermann, Greta Van Susteren, and Joe Scarborough, and sometimes even individuals who try to operate "above the fray" of punditry like Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, and David Letterman (See "Web-only campaign advertisements flood presidential race" "In a study released last summer....the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found most Americans heard about the most famous viral videos because they saw them replayed on TV").

Because a large and increasing number of Americans get their news from media personalities rather than from traditional broadcast or print media sources, these individuals have significant power to shape the national political discussion. Still, beyond campaigns' web-only ads, there hasn't yet been a concerted effort to use the Internet to directly influence these personalities and their television shows.

PROPOSAL

This void can be filled by a website that publishes a rating system and gauges/grades each of these media personalities (over multiple periods of time: daily [i.e., per episode], monthly, etc.) with a variety of qualitative metrics.

Ideally, such metrics would focus on process rather than substance (e.g., % of material that avoids explicit mention of either party's talking-points-of-the-day; % of in-show discussion that is active, fair dialogue with guests of opposing perspectives). Some metrics would be determined by the site's designers while others would be generated and selected (i.e., voted on) by the site's users. A team of qualitative analysts would code each media personality's episodes for (1) the site designers' metrics and (2) any given metric a critical mass the website's users select, and publish the results daily.

This website would be most influential as a source for audience feedback beyond bare headcounts (i.e., network viewer ratings). For some media personalities, that feedback will act as a friendly nudge that helps them improve their shows. For others, the ultimate message might sound more like Jon Stewart on Crossfire.

QUESTIONS (each followed by potential answers)

• (1) How should this kind of a site be funded, and by whom?
  • Non-partisan journalism NGOs through a project grant
  • The Berkman Center (see "Donations" link in navigation pane in left frame)
• (2) What kind of knowledge workers would the daily operations require?
  • College research assistants as coders
• (3) What kind of goals should such a website pursue?
  • Active dialogue
  • More informed discussion
  • Sophistication of television personalities
  • Honesty
  • Bipartisanship
  • Dedication to truth
  • Fighting the political class's elitism
  • Fighting prejudices/smears
  • Deconstructing euphemistic language/political correctness
  • Strengthening/Weakening political parties' control of the national political dialogue
  • Expansion of the national political dialogue to include new and unique perspectives
• (4) How else could a pundit-centric website serve to channel the widespread complaints of "Media Bias" into a polished online platform?
  • Hall of Shame for self-proclaimed (one-time guest) "Analysts" and "Experts" who actually have no rightful claim to either title.
  • Sponsor and/or Host Op-Eds, Blogs, Vlogs, "Blogologues", and "Diavlogs" by premier Media/Journalism academics.
  • Work to immediately uncover the original sources of stories in order (1) to get a sense of who is already influencing media personalities (and their writers) and (2) to push back against rushed vetting of unsubstantiated stories (a la Martin Eisenstadt)
  • Highlight stories/angles the traditional anchors are broadcasting that these hosts are ignoring/purposely passing on.
• (5) How much embedded footage of actual shows can such a website legally display under Fair Use?
  • A good place to start looking is Talking Points Memo's "The Day in 100 Seconds" Vidcast Series

--CKennedy 01:42, 25 November 2008 (EST)

There was a group at the University of Michigan looking at a similar issue a couple years ago... if you'd like, I can try to look them up. Dan Ray 13:10, 1 December 2008 (EST)