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Eavesblogging the Internet Law Program
Last week the Berkman Center held their second annual Internet Law Program, an intensive course in (surprise) internet law and developments. You probably didn't spend the time/money to attend, but the topics covered are interesting enough (to me anyway) to check it out even second-hand. Dan Gillmor attended and posted his notes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 part 1 and Day 5 part 2. Donna Wentworth was there, trying to record the seminar in real-time; hopefully she's learned her lesson. There is tons of interesting stuff in there - it's worth your time to read through if you have any interest in the subject matter at all.
Could someone shed some light on this one. I don't understand how they are possibly going to be able to prosecute people since the internet doesn't really have political boundaries. I am guessing they may do it based on where the server or client was located, but wouldn't that border on unreasonable search and seziure (at least in the US)?
"First thing to point out about free software is that it's very hard to ignore. Not about free as costless, but a lot of enterprises with money running on question of whether server is running, and what they're using is free software."
It is very interesting (to me anyway) that so much money is spent on making sure that free software works.
It tends to make it much more obvious how much better free (as in open source) software is, as compared to the competition. See, if it were just free, and companies used it, you could say, "Cheap companies!" However, the fact that companies sink a lot of money into a server running free software shows that there is a serious lack of competitive comercial packages for the job.
For instance, I know my company would rather pay $5,000 for a good comercial package, rather than go with a more complex free software, that requires someone who knows someting to run it.
Of course, the fact that there aren't a lot of good comercial server platforms is good for me. If there were, I would not have my job....
Well I read it from cover to cover and found it interesting, stimulating and all that.
But short on practical advice.
I've been to a few of these legal seminars and the trouble is that virtually every legal topic of interest is still in flux. The common feature seems to be, if you think you have an Internet problem then you must consult a lawyer. The law is still so uncertain that you cannot possibly be sure that you are applying best practice. Or even that last quarter's advice is still valid.
Mind you, a lot of e-commerce companies know this and aren't too worried.
The UK has a reasonable Data Protection act that should allow some redress if a UK site does bad things with your personal details. It was passed a few years ago now and to date there have been approximately ZERO prosecutions.
All of the professors, and most of the attendees, were extremely clueful. Though Larry Lessig painted a very convincing and very dire picture of the future of the internet, I was given hope by the fact that many of the attendees both "get it" and are in the position to influence the powerful towards the implementation of good policy.
One of my favorite moments was during a discussion of deep linking, when the recent NPR linking policy issue came up as an example of how some large organizations, even those ostensibly seeking wide dissemination of quality news and information, really didn't understand how central linking is to the way the web works. At this point, the deputy general counsel of NPR, who happened to be in attendance, introduced herself and gave an excellent description of why the NPR policy was wrong-headed. She'd always thought it was a bad policy (I believe her word was "stupid"), and was glad it had come to light.
Once my hosting provider overcomes some technical problems, I'll post my notes from the conference.
Any other attendees have good stories to share? I know a significant portion of the crowd there reads slashdot.
Joe Gratz