Other participants in the workshop included Andrew McLaughlin (from Civic Commons), Kristin Smith (from the office of Rep. Denny Rehberg), and privacy researcher Ashkan Soltani. We owe thanks to them as well as the many indefatigable audience members who stuck with us for half a day as we twisted through a variety of competing descriptions of Internet video infrastructure, and frequently intervened with useful descriptions of their own.

In the end, we came away from the five-hour workshop with dozens of pages of detailed graphical notes. We are now in the process of compiling Amanda’s notes from each panel into a clear and comprehensive graphical representation. We expect that this graphic will be of use to policymakers, journalists, video makers, and many others who seek to (a) understand how Internet video works and (b) analyze the various points of control and access enabled by the design of different devices, licensing arrangements, compression formats, applications, browsers, operating systems, Internet access services, content delivery networks, and peering agreements. We’ll be sure to post this graphic here and elsewhere when it’s complete.

In the meantime, we want to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who was involved with this workshop and to the Knight Foundation for supporting the Yale Information Society Project’s research in these emerging areas of law, media, and communications technologies.

Roundtable III: Educational Innovation in Africa and Beyond

The speakers on this panel were Coetzee Bester, Jacques du Plessis, Dick Kawooya, Andrew Rens and Philipp Schmidt.

­­­Andrew Rens kicked off the discussion.  He began by talking about the evolution of education.  The industrial revolution brought with it an industrial model of education.  Now the digital revolution has altered the way education occurs.  He closed his introduction by asking whether we should want education to be governed as a commons.

Coetzee Bester spoke next.  He discussed the objectives of teaching information ethics in Africa.  Two of the greatest challenges to education innovation in Africa are staggering poverty and a public health crisis.  About 50% of the 900 million people on the African continent live on less than $1 per day.  Illiteracy and lack of access to information and technology further hinder education innovation.  There is also a brain drain of skilled people leaving Africa.  Leaders are working towards extending bandwidth and expanding access to Internet services.  The Africa Network for Information Ethics (ANIE) offers a promising opportunity to improve access to knowledge.

Jacques Du Plessis was the next speaker.  He talked about his project, www.openlanguages.net, which is a world-wide collaboration to develop open learning of less commonly-taught languages.  He wants to bring cohesion—“one-stop shopping”—to online education.  He thinks that NGOs, corporations and governments should collaborate on this effort.  He believes that one problem with OpenCourseWare is that it is fragmented.  He supports an education model in which the two roles of schools, the teaching of skills and the verification of skills, can exist independently.  Students should be allowed to demonstrate their skills at an institution without necessarily having to learn those skills at the same institution. 

Philipp Schmidt was the panel’s final speaker.  He runs a project called Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) which is an online learning community based on peer learning principles (http://p2pu.org).  Everything is completely free and open and most things are run by volunteers.  Although P2PU is not an accredited institution, it awards “badges” and is building pathways to formal credit.  Philip closed by describing how P2PU has been successful at innovating around barriers.

Roundtable IV: Accessing Legal Information

The panelists were Mariya Bedeva-Bright, Tom Bruce, Ivan Mokanov, Isabelle Moncion, Darrel Pink and Daniel Poulin.

The panelists talked about making legal information more easily accessible to the public.  Isabelle Moncion spoke about how LexUM had hoped JuriBurkina and JuriNiger would become a one-stop access point to Burkina Faso and Niger’s legal information.  She described how JuriBurkina and JuriNiger did not live up to expectations because they were not “comprehensive, one-stop and up-to-date.”  These are the three attributes users of online legal resources desire.

Daniel Poulin discussed how the availability of legal information in West Africa has significantly improved over the last five to ten years.  Three factors can help explain this change.  The first factor is the desire of the people and the institutions of the countries involved to meet the requirements for good governance and transparency of their various development partners.  The second factor is the rapid growth of the Internet and the sudden availability of an entire generation of free and open technologies.  The third factor is the model provided by a multitude of free content initiatives on the Internet, especially the Free Access to Law Movement.  

Ivan Mokanov talked about measuring the success of Free Access to Law initiatives.  Understanding the impact of free access to law on the competence of lawyers leads to some important questions: Are lawyers more competent in terms of services rendered and time spent on issues?  Have legal information websites facilitated and improved the work of lawyers?  Has the quality of legal services improved, leading to improved access to justice?

Ivan then passed the microphone to Mariya Bedeva-Bright.  Mariya discussed the need to build sustainable institutions that can provide free online access to legal materials.  The primary objective of the African Legal Information Institute (African LII) is to start a conversation and develop strategies leading towards financially, technically and organizationally sustainable free access to law operations that would be able to carry the free distribution of the law for many years.  A vital component of this path to sustainability is advocating for the entrenchment of free access to law principles across the continent which would result in deregulation in restrictive regimes and regulation or policy towards facilitating public access.

Next up was Darrel Pink.  He spoke about how the rule of law and fundamental principles of democracy require access to legal information.  However, mere access is not enough.  The law must also be presented in a way that is useful to average individuals.  Given the exponential growth in the amount of law affecting people in both developed and developing countries, those who disseminate it face enormous barriers to making law meaningful to citizens.  Whether it is the eleven official languages in South Africa or the low levels of literacy in other countries, those who create and disseminate legal information must recognize that the simple publication of what lawmakers or judges create does little to achieve the goals of the free access to law movement.

Tom Bruce spoke about the public interest in making legal information easily accessible to everybody.  The problem is that there are differences of opinion about who “everybody” is, and about the precise nature of the need.  Before the Internet revealed broader (and deeper) needs, “everybody” mostly meant “lawyers”, or it meant “the general public as lawyers imagine it to be”, which is to say, people having traumatic encounters with the legal system.  As in many other areas where the Internet has aggregated previously‐fragmented audiences into significant groups, it has gathered an audience of non‐lawyer professionals.  These are people who make continuous use of law for professional purposes but are not lawyers.  There are a lot of them.  Police officers are the first example anyone thinks of, but it is perhaps more useful to contemplate hospital managers using public‐benefits law, engineering managers in IP‐intensive companies, or indeed about anyone whose buying or selling or operations are regulated by the state. 

Question from the audience: Whose responsibility is it to make the law accessible to the public?

Darrel Pink: In many parts of the world, publishing law is subversive and governments don’t have a desire to make law publicly accessible.  So even though the government should be responsible for publishing law, it often cannot be expected to do this.  The responsibility of making law freely accessible to the public should be shared by four entities: the legal profession, courts, government and civil society.

Tom Bruce: Finding the right actors to make law more accessible depends on the specific factual circumstances within each country.  In the US, private industry is highly involved in publishing legal information and the government facilitates this private market.  This model, however, may be difficult to replicate in some countries.       

Roundtable VI: ICTs and Access in the Developing World

The panelists were Carlos Affonso, Marilia Maciel, Fikremarkos Mersos and Hong Xue.

Fikremarkos Mersos talked about the state of ICTs in Ethiopia and the digital divide.  Ethiopia, with about 80 million residents, is one of 49 “least developed” countries.  Ethiopia is a late comer to ICT but it has instituted an ambitious policy framework of providing affordable ICTs to individuals, households and businesses.  There has been substantial growth in the last 5 years but the figures for Ethiopian Internet, mobile and fixed telephone subscriptions and broadband access are disappointing.  The market structure for ICT is a public monopoly.  The problems in the ICT sector include: a backward ICT infrastructure; lack of access; high access costs; law quality of access; a digital divide between cities and rural areas; diverse local languages, scripts and dialects; lack of skilled manpower in ICT; and illiteracy.  The government has embarked on very ambitious ICT projects including Woredanet (linking 631 districts to a national data center), Schoolnet (connecting secondary schools to the Internet), Ethernet (connecting 13 public universities to the Internet), Agrinet and Healthnet.  There is a major public debate over the wisdom of having the government retain monopoly control over the ICT market.  Ethiopia recently signed a two-year management contract with France Telecom.  Some people hope that WTO membership will lead to liberalization of the ICT market and open the sector to greater competition and access.

Carlos Affonso then presented on the Brazilian experience using the Internet to promote a more democratic legislative process.  Brazilians created a civil rights framework for the Internet—they framed the topic of Internet activity as a civil rights issue.  There was an organized online effort to provide commentary on proposed Internet legislation that, among other things, would criminalize a host of typical online practices.  A popular movement developed to push for greater civil rights and Internet freedom.  This movement received support from individuals from all over Brazil as well as the world.  Carlos said that public participation on technical debates requires not only the given expertise of the participants, but also a certain degree of capacity building and mobilization. 

Marilia Maciel detailed copyright law reform in Brazil.  Brazilian copyright policy is governed by the Ministry of Culture.  The Ministry of Culture has gained importance during the presidency of Lula.  Minister Gilberto Gil and his successor, Juca Ferreira, put forth several policies which aim to foster digital culture such as Pontos de Cultura, Fórum de Cultura Digital and Fórum de Mídia Livre.  The government also gave support to alternative licensing models, such as creative commons, and fostered the use of free software in governmental bodies.  Over the years there has been steady pressure on the Brazilian government to reform copyright law to make it more A2K-friendly.  The Ministry of Culture has made a concerted effort to enable citizens to provide feedback on copyright law.  For an English translation of the proposed copyright reform legislation, see http://www.a2kbrasil.org.br/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/brazilian_copyright_bill_consolidated_june_2010.pdf.  The discussion about the draft proposal was carried out in a very democratic way.  The text was made available on an online platform that allowed users to comment on and debate each paragraph.  The public comments were then summarized and sent to Congress late last year.  Marilia talked about continuing copyright reform through a project called International IP and the Public Interest.  For information about this project, visit www.infojustice.org. 

The recent presidential election of Dilma Rousseff, the candidate supported by Lula, seemed to be positive for Brazilian copyright reform.  However, she appointed a new Ministry of Culture, Mrs. Ana de Hollanda, whose initial position has been that the draft text of the copyright reform legislation needs to be reviewed and re-discussed.  In the face of this threat to copyright reform, members of the Brazilian civil society have prepared a letter to the new Minister of Culture urging her to continue the reform process and submit the text to Congress.  The letter is open for signatures at the following address: http://culturadigital.br/cartaaberta/.

Switching gears and winding up the discussion, Hong Xue presented her analysis of IP rights in China.  Hong is Director of the Institute for Internet Policy & Law at Beijing Normal University (http://wiki.iipl.org.cn/).    

Roundtable VII: A2K, Privacy, and Freedom of Expression

The speakers on this panel were Jack Balkin, Laura DeNardis and Bryan Choi.

Laura DeNardis spoke about the privatization of Internet governance and regulation of freedom of expression.  Internet governance can be divided into 5 areas: design of Internet protocols; control of critical Internet resources; communication rights; intellectual property rights; and Internet security and infrastructure management.  Laura introduced some key concepts from her forthcoming book Technologies of Dissent.  She discussed different conceptions of dissent in online contexts.  Rather than attach a normative meaning to dissent, she recognizes that dissent can have positive and negative effects and that it is culturally specific.  Laura then discussed how private industry is playing an increasing role in preserving free expression.  She focused on corporate action at the infrastructure level.   She mentioned the importance of private sector Internet backbone peering agreements and talked about the anti-trust concerns as well as the possibility of government censorship.  Laura identified deep packet inspection as another area where there is privatization of freedom of expression.  She concluded her remarks by pointing out that regardless of the interests at stake, there is always a tension between interoperability/openness and control/proprietary systems.

Bryan Choi talked about anonymity and identity.  He began by pointing out that there is actually some overlap between these two ostensibly opposing concepts.  Anonymity has been said to promote truth, alter the perception of speakers and increase the quantity of participation.  Disclosure, on the other hand, has been said to promote truth as well, assemble reputational data and improve the quality of participation.  In the area of privacy, anonymity supports contextual identities and protects the exercise of unpopular activities while disclosure curtails the “society of strangers,” facilitates sharing of information and cultivates open tolerance of differences.  Bryan ended by suggesting that a healthy approach to anonymity in any context is to ask how much is necessary.  Laura noted that anonymity is not absolute on the Internet.  For instance, even though Internet users may be anonymous to each other, IP addresses can identify individuals to ISPs and the government.

Jack Balkin talked about WikiLeaks.  He pointed out that although Bradley Manning, the Army Corporal who leaked classified information to WikiLeaks, had a duty not to disclose this information, Julian Assange had a strong First Amendment claim to be able to publish it.  The Espionage Act, the WWI-era criminal statute under which the US sought to prosecute Assange, is rather ill-suited to the task of responding to WikiLeaks.  Jack then discussed how media policy relates to the debate over WikiLeaks.  The US has a transnational media policy—it wants to assert its influence over the media in other countries.  WikiLeaks poses a threat to this policy.  Assange also has a transnational media policy.  Jack compared him to Radio Free Europe.  Finally, Jack spoke about how new technologies like WikiLeaks can affect professional norms in the media.  When new media technologies arise, users redefine the norms of professionalism.

Please join us for the Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group scheduled for December 2, 2009 from 6:00-8:30 pm at Harvard.  The event will take place in Conference Room 202 of the Berkman Center at 23 Everett Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Please RSVP to Herkko Hietanen at herkko.hietanen@hiit.fi if you plan to attend.  Refreshments provided.   The following scholars will be featured at this month’s meeting:

David Singh Grewal is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, and an Affiliated Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. His first book, Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization was published by Yale University Press in 2008. He holds a JD from Yale, and is currently completing his PhD in the Harvard Government department, where he is finishing his dissertation, “The Invention of the Economy.” He is also on the board of the Biobricks Foundation, a non-profit working to develop an open-source platform for the emerging field of synthetic biology.

Donnie Hao Dong is a Fellow at Berkman Center and a Lecturer at Yunnan University (PRC). His research interests cover copyright law, cyber law and law and social development in digital age. He got a JSD from China University of Polictics and Law with his dissertation on the public domain in the context of Chinese copyright law. Now Donnie is a PhD Candidate in City University of Hong Kong closing his research on the lessons of Chinese copyright reform for digital age.  His publications, short essays and nags can be accessed at http://www.BLawgDog.com.

Mackenzie Cowell graduated from Davidson College with a BS in Biology in 2007 and currently works as a Research Assistant at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.  He is booting up a public biotech lab in Boston (bosslab.org). He tweets: @100ideas.

Donnie Dong is going to present his studies of how the Utilitarian copyright of western word collides with Chinese copyright law.

David will examine the question of: Is there a way to bring “free culture” into biotechnology? His talk will explore one recent effort to do so: the creation of the Biobricks Public Agreement, a legal mechanism meant to assist the development of an open, shared platform in the emerging area of synthetic biology.

Mackenzie Cowell co-founded DIYbio.org after witnessing hundreds of undergraduate teams successfully design and build standardized biological parts and devices while competing in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, which Cowell helped organize at MIT from 2006-08.  DIYbio.org is now the center of a diverse and international community of people interested in amateur biotechnology, from artists to scientists to schoolchildren to garage entrepreneurs. In this presentation, Cowell will present some of the projects currently being developed by this community of non-institutional researchers.

Followed by Open Discussion

The “Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group” is a forum for fellows and affiliates of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University to discuss their ongoing research. Each session is focused on the peer review and discussion of current projects submitted by a presenter. Meeting alternatively at Harvard, MIT, Yale, the working group aims to expand the shared knowledge of young scholars by bringing together these preeminent centers of thought on issues confronting the information age. Discussion sessions are designed to facilitate advancements in the individual research of presenters and in turn encourage exposure among the participants to the multi-disciplinary features of the issues addressed by their own work.