HerdictWeb : About

HerdictWeb : About

Cooley Establishes Harvard Law School’s First Cyberlaw Clinic Fellowship | Berkman Center

Cooley Establishes Harvard Law School’s First Cyberlaw Clinic Fellowship | Berkman Center

Intern and Research Assistant Program | Berkman Center

Intern and Research Assistant Program | Berkman Center

Radio Berkman: A Safer Web | Berkman Center

Radio Berkman: A Safer Web | Berkman Center

Cooperation | Berkman Center

Cooperation | Berkman Center

What Lessig Received Recently!

Cambridge bound! Berkman Center

Restricted Access: A Critical Assessment of Internet Content Regulation and Censorship in Turkey

Cyber-Rights.Org.TR » Internet: Restricted Access: Internet: Restricted Access: A Critical Assessment of Internet Content Regulation and Censorship in Turkey (Released on 25 November, 2008)

By Dr. Yaman Akdeniz & Dr. Kerem Altıparmak

Published with the support of ‘Freedom of Expression’ Programme of İnsan Hakları Ortak Platformu.

Executive Summary
There may be different approaches to the growth of the Internet in different societies and the impact of the Internet on different nation-states may have different results. Different nation-states present a different level of economic development, respect for rights, trans-nationality, and technological sophistication. While Turkey may be considered at a developing stage with respect to the Internet, others may be far more sophisticated with regards to Internet access, use, and penetration. Inevitably, this will be reflected in the policy making process and approaches to the governance of the Internet. Because of cultural, historical and socio-political diversity, there will inevitably be divergent approaches to the growth and governance of the Internet in different European societies. For example, while the German and French governments have political fears and sensitivities about the use of the Internet by Neo-Nazis, the United Kingdom takes a more relaxed attitude to the dangers of racism but conversely has a long cultural tradition of repression towards the availability of sexually explicit material. On the other hand, the Turkish government may be more concerned about defamatory statements made in relation to state officials and politicians, other values related to the State and the dissemination of racist and terrorist propaganda. No doubt, those concerns must not lead to the violation of international standards for the protection of freedom of expression in democratic societies.

Restricted Access by Yaman Akdeniz & Kerem Altıparmak assesses the nature of Internet content regulation and censorship in Turkey by providing an overview of the current legislative regime from a critical perspective. This will include legislative attempts to regulate Internet content in Turkey as well as a critical assessment of the recently enacted Law No. 5651 on the Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Suppression of Crimes Committed by means of Such Publications and its related regulations. This will also include an analysis of the legal responsibilities of various actors including content providers, hosting companies, access providers (ISPs), and Internet cafes. The book also assesses how the current regulatory systems work and how websites, predominantly situated outside the Turkish jurisdiction, are blocked by court and administrative orders by giving examples. The book also assesses blocking orders which fall outside the scope of the new legislation.

Freedom of expression has been one of the key issues in Turkey’s democratisation process. The European Court of Human Rights has found Turkey in violation of the ECHR in a number of article 10 cases. The new Turkish law on Internet contains provisions that have potential to cause similar violations. Thus, this study examines the new regulations bearing this situation in mind. The book also contains an overview of international developments with regards to Internet content regulation at the European Union, and Council of Europe levels.

In Restricted Access, the authors Akdeniz & Altıparmak argue that Law No. 5651 was rushed through the Parliament just before the Parliament was dissolved for the 2007 general elections, and it has received no broad public support before or after its enactment. More importantly, the authors identify several problems and procedural defects with the application of Law No. 5651. Furthermore, Akdeniz & Altıparmak argue that the current Turkish regime, through its procedural and substantive deficiencies, is designed to censor and silence political speech. Its impacts are wide, affecting not only freedom of speech but also the right to privacy and fair trial. In its conclusion, Restricted Access calls for the abolishment of the Law No. 5651, and calls upon the government, among other recommendations, to commission a major public inquiry to develop a new policy which is truly designed to protect children from harmful Internet content while respecting freedom of speech, and the rights of Turkish adults to access and consume any type of Internet content.

About the Authors

Dr. Yaman Akdeniz is a Senior lecturer (Associate Professor) at the School of Law, University of Leeds. Akdeniz is the founder of Cyber-Rights.Org based in the UK, and the co-founder of BilgiEdinmeHakki.org, a pressure group working in the field of freedom of information law in Turkey. His recent publications include Internet Child Pornography and the Law: National and International Responses (London: Ashgate, 2008: ISBN: 0 7546 2297 5). For further information about his work see http://cyberlaw.org.uk. Akdeniz can be contacted at lawya@cyber-rights.org

Dr. Kerem Altıparmak is an Assistant Professor at the Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences. He is also responsible for a number of projects carried out by the Human Rights Centre of the Faculty. He is the author of numerous works on human rights in Turkey. His interest areas include freedom of expression, ECHR, national human rights institutions. For further information about his work see http://80.251.40.59/politics.ankara.edu.tr/altipar/. Altıparmak can be contacted at kerem.altiparmak@politics.ankara.edu.tr

How to obtain the Book: Internet: Restricted Access: A Critical Assessment of Internet Content Regulation and Censorship in Turkey can be obtained through the following websites: http://www.cyber-rights.org.tr; http://cyberlaw.org.uk; and http://www.ihop.org.tr/ as an e-book in PDF format, and versions in Turkish and English will be both available from Tuesday, 25 November, 2008. Furthermore, paper copies of the book can be obtained through bookshops in Turkey.

1. Internet: Restricted Access: A Critical Assessment of Internet Content Regulation and Censorship in Turkey - black/white version
2. Internet: Restricted Access: A Critical Assessment of Internet Content Regulation and Censorship in Turkey - colour version

BERKMAN CENTER'S CITIZEN MEDIA LAW PROJECT AND CYBERLAW CLINIC URGE BROAD READING OF MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAPP STATUTE

Cambridge, MA – November 10, 2008 – The Berkman Center for Internet and Society's Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP), together with the Online News Association, Media Bloggers Association, New England Press Association, and Globe Newspaper Company, publisher of The Boston Globe and Boston.com, this week urged a broad reading of Massachusetts' anti-SLAPP law in a friend-of-the-court filing.

The amici curiae brief was filed in the case of Dugas v. Robbins, Case No. BACV2008-491, pending in Massachusetts Superior Court in Barnstable. The case concerns allegations of defamation against a blogger on Cape Cod. The Court is considering the defendant's motion to dismiss the lawsuit under the Commonwealth's anti-SLAPP law, M.G.L. c. 231, § 59H.

The coalition of amici, led by the CMLP and represented by Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, argue in their brief that the defendant should be able to take advantage of the anti-SLAPP law even if he is deemed to be a member of the news media or if he receives compensation for his blog posts. Amici explain that a decision to deny the anti-SLAPP law's protections to members of the news media or bloggers would chill their efforts to inform citizens about issues before the government.

More information about the case and about the Massachusetts anti-SLAPP statute is available on the CMLP's website, http://www.citmedialaw.org.

About the Berkman Center for Internet & Society:
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is proud to celebrate its tenth year as a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study and help pioneer its development. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, the Center is now home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff and affiliates working on projects that span the broad range of intersections between cyberspace, technology and society. More information can be found at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu.

About the Citizen Media Law Project:
The Citizen Media Law Project, which is jointly affiliated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Center for Citizen Media, has five primary objectives: legal education and training; collection and analysis of legal threats; litigation referral, consultation, and representation; community building; and advocacy on behalf of citizen media. It was the recipient of a 2007 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation News Challenge grant. For more information, visit http://www.citmedialaw.org.

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Contact: Chris Bavitz
617-495-9125
cbavitz@cyber.law.harvard.edu

RESEARCH ASSISTANT to BENKLER & "The Cooperation Research Group"

Janet Moran sent this:
---------------
Hello all,

As we gear up for the fall semester, Research Assistant positions are starting to spring up! Many opportunities will be announced in the coming weeks, and we have an early announcement now: researching with Professor Yochai Benkler and his cooperation group.

Details about the position are below, and an information session about the cooperation group will be held in the Berkman Center's conference room on September 4th at 6:00 p.m. (The Berkman Center is located at 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA). Snacks will be provided.

Keep an eye on our Internship page for listings as they arise:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/getinvolved/internships. You can apply to the positions as they are posted, and we will hold our Fall Open House on the evening of September 24th, location TBD, where you can learn about the research and meet members of the Berkman community.

As always, please feel free to send this announcement to your friends and colleagues who may have interest in the exciting opportunity with Professor Benkler.

All best,
Becca

**********************************************************************************************************************************

Please submit all required materials to Janet Moran at jmoran@law.harvard.edu no later than August 28, 2008 at 5pm.


Project Description:

What makes Wikipedia or digg succeed? What makes other collaborative efforts fail? Peer production?large scale cooperation among human participants?has become an increasingly important mechanism for the creation of information, knowledge, and culture. Civil society organizations like the Sunlight Foundation are building collaborative platforms to expose government abuses. Businesses like Threadless T- Shirts and Amazon Mechanical Turk are using it to harness distributed intelligence and work capabilities. The intelligence community has set up an internal Intellipedia, and the Army, Company Commander. Some diffuse social networks like CouchSurfing or BookCrossing are using it to
share sleeping accommodations or books, while others, like DailyKos, harness political mobilization.

The Cooperation Research Group, led by Professor Yochai Benkler, analyzes the design of cooperative human systems through a combination of interdisciplinary observational, experimental, and theoretical studies. As part of this project, the group is embarking on a new effort to provide a map of commons-based and cooperative peer production today. The purpose of the study is to offer a systematic analysis of a wide range of information and knowledge production sectors, to identify practices, list them, describe them, and categorize them.

To learn more, watch Prof. Benkler's TED talk on collaboration here:
.



Job Task/Responsibilities:

Research Assistants will have the opportunity to contribute substantively to this project, conducting and writing case studies as well as providing input on overall research design and execution.

As part of this position, you will need to:

* Conduct in-depth research on commons-based peer-production using
online resources, library databases and secondary sources,
ethnographic participant observation of online communities, as
well as statistical and/or computational data collection.

* Write-up findings on a regular, iterative basis, conforming to
research protocols and deadlines laid out by Professor Benkler and
project leaders.

* Submit written results to online repositories in a timely and
organized fashion.

* Present results to the rest of the research group on a bi-weekly
basis.

* Critically and constructively engage with group members' research;
collaborate openly on all projects; integrate feedback & criticism
of your own work.

The position will begin in mid-September. The required commitment is approximately 15 hours per week (including weekly case study research group meetings) through December 15.

PALFREY'S TURKEY VISIT

"Turkey at the edge"

The "Palfrey" reflections in Turkish press:
Sabah Daily, Milliyet Daily, Zaman Daily, Hurriyet Daily,
A video news-clip in CNN-Turk
and all of them!
-I wish I were here when he came. I was abroad...-

The Ethics of Social Networking

The Center for Internet and Society andThe Stanford Center for Ethics
present Thursday, Feb. 14, 200812:00-2:00pm
Stanford University Tressider Union, Cypress Room N-S

Has "online privacy?" become an oxymoron, or are we bound to develop a "new privacy" concept that prioritizes nuanced control of personal information? Is this new concept tenable?

What are the benefits and risks of the standardization of social networking? What impact does social networking technology have on interpersonal virtues? Are we witnessing the flattening of
social landscape by online networks? And can one be a college student without Facebook?

The Stanford Center on Ethics and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society invite you to a discussion of a host of ethical and social concerns generated by the evolving culture of social networking, particularly by Internet users' habits and Web 2.0 sites' practices and strategies ­just in time for Valentine?s Day.

Moderated by Dean Eckles, a research scientist and designer at Nokia Research Center. Panelists include Dr. BJ Fogg, Director of Research and Design at Stanford's Persuasive Technology Lab, and lecturer at the Computer Science Dept; Jia Shen, Co-Founder and CTO of RockYou; and Shannon Vallor, Professor of Philosophy at Santa Clara University.
Come and add your voice to the discussion.

EU data regulator says Internet addresses are personal information

BRUSSELS, Belgium - IP addresses, string of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union's group of data privacy regulators said Monday.

Germany's data protection commissioner, Peter Scharr, leads the EU group preparing a report on how well the privacy policies of Internet search engines operated by Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others comply with EU privacy law.
He told a European Parliament hearing on online data protection that when someone is identified by an IP, or Internet protocol, address "then it has to be regarded as personal data."
His view differs from that of Google, which insists an IP address merely identifies the location of a computer, not who the individual user is - something strictly true but which does not recognize that many people regularly use the same computer terminal and IP address.
Scharr acknowledged that IP addresses for a computer may not always be personal or linked to an individual. For example, some computers in Internet cafes or offices are used by several people.
But these exceptions have not stopped the emergence of a host of "whois" Internet sites that apply the general rule that typing in an IP address will generate a name for the person or company linked to it.
Treating IP addresses as personal information would have implications for how search engines record data.
(Source: Silicon Valley)

"F2C": FREEDOM TO CONTENT

"Freedom to Content" - March 31- April 1, 2008

For the details click here!

Berkman@10: The Berkman Center Celebrates its 10th Year as a Research Center at Harvard Law School

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is proud to celebrate its tenth year as a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, the Center is now home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates working on projects that span the broad range of intersections between cyberspace, technology, and society.

Through research, events, and discussion, Berkman@10 considers "The Future of the Internet" - to celebrate the work we have done together over the past decade, and to look ahead to what we hope to accomplish collectively in the next.
If you would like to make a comment on this "birthday" go to Palfrey's special page!

Breaking Down Digital Barriers:

International Study Examines the Issue of Interoperability Innovation, consumer choice and competition most important considerations Private sector well-suited to lead interoperability efforts

WASHINGTON, DC -- The findings of an international study released today by researchers from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Research Center for Information Law, University of St. Gallen indicate that private sector leadership, more so than government intervention, is the optimal method for ensuring that technologies work well together and innovation flourishes. The authors of "Breaking Down Digital Barriers: When and How ICT Interoperability Drives Innovation" found that interoperability is generally good for consumers and drives innovation, but determined that there is no "silver bullet" solution to the issue. Interoperability has increasingly become more important because computer users -- whether they be consumers, businesses, or governments -- now tend to obtain hardware and software from different vendors and expect everything to work together. One approach to the issue that has received attention advocates government-mandated adoption of specific technologies to compel interoperability.
This study suggests that such approaches are unlikely to be the optimal approach to interoperability. "Interoperability leads to innovation and many benefits for consumers," said co-principal investigator John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. "The case studies we investigated produced clear conclusions: The ICT industry is achieving considerable interoperability every day in response to the needs of customers. There is often more than one way to achieve interoperability. Market-driven initiatives tend to provide the most long-term promise." "This research demonstrates that there is no standard application to achieve ICT interoperability," said Urs Gasser, co-principal investigator and Director of the Research Center for Information Law. "Attempting to impose universal answers can produce unintended consequences such as curtailing innovation, limiting consumer choice and reducing competition. Instead, each situation needs to be analyzed on its own, to determine the best way to achieve interoperability. Nor can we forget that interoperability is simply a means to larger and more important goals, such as consumer choice, access to content, ease of use and diversity."

The key findings

The research focused on three case studies in which the issues of interoperability and innovation are uppermost: digital rights management in online and offline music distribution models; various models of digital identity systems (how computing systems identify users to provide the correct level of access and security); and web services (in which computer applications or programs connect with each other over the Internet to provide specific services to customers).

The core finding is that "increased levels of ICT interoperability generally foster innovation. But interoperability also contributes to other socially desirable outcomes. In our three case studies, we have studied its positive impact on consumer choice, ease of use, access to content, and diversity, among other things."

The investigation reached other, more nuanced conclusions:
* Interoperability does not mean the same thing in every context and as such, is not always good for everyone all the time. For example, if one wants completely secure software, then that software should probably have limited interoperability. In other words, there is no one-size-fits-all way to achieve interoperability in the ICT context.
* Interoperability can be achieved by multiple means including the licensing of intellectual property, product design, collaboration with partners, development of standards and governmental intervention. The easiest way to make a product from one company work well with a product from another company, for instance, may be for the companies to cross license their technologies. But in a different situation, another approach (collaboration or open standards) may be more effective and efficient.
* The best path to interoperability depends greatly upon context and which subsidiary goals matter most, such as prompting further innovation, providing consumer choice or ease of use, and the spurring of competition in the field.
* The private sector generally should lead interoperability efforts. The public sector should stand by either to lend a supportive hand or to determine if its involvement is warranted.

Recommendations

The authors of the study propose a process constructed around a set of guidelines to help businesses and governments determine the best way to achieve interoperability in a given situation. This approach may have policy implications for governments.
* Identify what the actual end goal or goals are. The goal is not interoperability per se, but rather something to which interoperability can lead, such as innovation or consumer choice.
* Consider the facts of the situation. The key variables that should be considered include time, maturity of the relevant technologies and markets and user practices and norms.
* In light of these goals and facts of the situation, consider possible options against the benchmarks proposed by the study: effectiveness, efficiency and flexibility.
* Remain open to the possibility of one or more approaches to interoperability, which may also be combined with one another to accomplish interoperability that drives innovation.
* In some instances, it may be possible to convene all relevant stakeholders to participate in a collaborative, open standards process. In other instances, the relevant facts may suggest that a single firm can drive innovation by offering to others the chance to collaborate through an open API, such as Facebook?s recent success in permitting third-party applications to run on its platform. But long-term sustainability may be an issue where a single firm makes an open API available according to a contract that it can change at any time.
* In the vast majority of cases, the private sector can and does accomplish a high level of interoperability on its own. The state may help by playing a convening role, or even in mandating a standard on which there is widespread agreement within industry after a collaborative process. The state may need to play a role after the fact to ensure that market actors do not abuse their positions.

The report and case studies can be downloaded at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interop.

The research was sponsored by Microsoft Corporation. ### The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is proud to celebrate its tenth year as a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, the Center is now home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates working on projects that span the broad range of intersections between cyberspace, technology, and society. More information can be found at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu.

The Research Center for Information Law, FIR-HSG, was established in 2000 by University of St. Gallen professors Jean Nicolas Druey, Herbert Burkert, and Rainer J. Schweizer. The research initiatives of the Center are aimed at analyzing and assessing legal frameworks and provisions that are regulating the creation, distribution, access, and usage of information in a given social subsystem such as the economic, cultural or political system; exploring the dynamic changes in information technologies and their impacts on the legal system. More information can be found at http://www.fir.unisg.ch/.

THE FUTURE of the INTERNET

Oxford Internet Institute - People - Faculty - Professor Jonathan Zittrain
The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) and
The Stanford Law and Technology Association (SLATA)
present
The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop It
with
Professor Jonathan Zittrain
Monday October 22, 2007
12:45-2:00
Room 280B
Free and Open to the public (no rsvp required)
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/5563

The Internet we know and love at risk even as its freedoms are at a high water mark and rising. It's the changing slope of the curve that counts. Regulators and some business types (e.g., incumbents)have interest in being able to intervene more readily; they've been stymied since the 1990's because the Net has produced too many golden eggs to be worth shutting it down. The deciding vote is the "consumer" vote, and they want their MTV. Unfortunately that vote is itself shifting, in part because of the uncontrolled environment represented by Net and PC: too much spyware, too many viruses, too little reliability for the applications they want to use. Waiting in the wings is a new generation of "information appliances" that in the past have been laughable (think WebTV) but now are killer: iPod, XBox, TiVo, most mobile phones, Zune, PSP. These appliances, and a general appliancization of the PC itself, represent a very different environment: the immutability of an appliance to the consumer and third parties (think television set), coupled with use of the latest Net innovations to make the thing eminently alterable by (and only by) its maker and licensees. This talk maps out the bad implications of an appliancized -- and Web 2.0 -- world, and offers suggestions to temper it.

Jonathan Zittrain has recently co-authored Access Denied, a study of Internet filtering by national governments, and his book, The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop It, will be released by Yale University Press and Penguin UK this winter. Papers may be found at http://www.jz.org.

GELMAN APPOINTED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of STANFORD'S C.I.S

Lauren Gelman Appointed Executive Director of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society

Source: Stanford Law School
STANFORD, Calif., Sept. 20, 2007-- Lauren Gelman has been appointed executive director of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society (CIS), a public interest technology law and policy program that brings together scholars, legislators, students, programmers,and scientists to study the interaction of new technologies and the law and to examine how the synergy between the two can promote or harm public goods like free speech, privacy, public commons,diversity, and scientific inquiry.
Gelman previously was associate director of CIS. Prior to joining Stanford, Gelman was corporate counsel for Real Names Corporation. She also spent six years in Washington, D.C. as the public policy director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and as the associate director of public policy for Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world's largest association of computer scientists. Gelman's predecessor, Jennifer Granick, is now civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and will continue at Stanford Law as a lecturer in law this fall.
"CIS represents real people in real projects that are changing the law," says Gelman, whose current research focuses on the legal implications of technologies like collaborative publishing and social networking tools, virtual worlds, and municipal wireless networks, that increase opportunities for personal expression. "I'm excited tobe taking the helm at this exciting time, when the potential of democratizing technologies is greater than ever."
Gelman's appointment comes during a period of intense activity for CIS. In September, CIS and Stanford Law's Cyberlaw Clinic scored a win in the Tenth Circuit when they successfully argued that the Copyright Term Extension Act and Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act ran a foul of their clients' First Amendment rights.Additionally, one of CIS's most recent initiatives, the Fair UseProject (FUP), this past year settled a copyright case against the Estate of James Joyce; won the dismissal of a copyright infringement action brought against a prominent electronic musician; and formed a partnership to provide legal support for documentary film makers.
Gelman's litigation achievements at CIS include her authorship of anamicus brief in Apple v. Does, where she represented bloggers in a case that resulted in a landmark decision granting blogs and online news sites the same legal protections as traditional media outlets inprotecting confidential sources. This year she represented Wired News in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Bureau of Customsand Border Protection that forced the agency to turn over documentsabout a security breach in border screening computers.
In addition to her work at CIS, Gelman teaches a course at Stanford Law School on Internet privacy, and has served on a variety of outside boards and committees, including the board of the non profit advocacy group Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's Secure Flight Working Group, which examined the privacy implications of the government's airline passenger screening program. She is also the dean and co-founder of the State of Play Academy (SOPA), an experimental online legal education program run by New York Law School that offers free classes in an immersive virtual world.
In her new role as executive director, Gelman will continue to expand CIS's litigation and advocacy efforts around free speech, innovation,security, and privacy. Specific issues the center plans to address this year include online participation in election campaigns; the relationship between courts and societies via virtual worlds; and launching a consumer privacy project.
"I'm thrilled to be working with Lauren, who brings considerable leadership and expertise to the position, and I look forward to continuing our work fostering laws and policies around technology that further democratic values," said Lawrence Lessig, director of CIS and Stanford Law professor.
CIS will continue to work on fair use cases and other collaborations with the Cyberlaw Clinic, which has moved under the umbrella of the Mills Legal Clinic of Stanford Law under the supervision of interim director and visiting professor of law Jennifer Urban. Urban comes to Stanford from USC, where she is clinical associate professor of law and director of the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic.
About Stanford Law School.

Stanford Law School is one of the nation's leading institutions for legal scholarship and education. Its alumni are among the most influential decision makers in law, politics, business, and high technology. Faculty members argue before the Supreme Court, testify before Congress, and write books and articles for academic audiences, as well as the popular press. Along with offering traditional law school classes, the school has embraced new subjects and new ways ofteaching. The school's home page is located at http://www.law.stanford.edu/.

About the Center for Internet and Society

Founded by Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig in 2001, the Center for Internet and Society is a public interest technology law and policy program at Stanford Law School which engages students, academics, technologists and policy makers in exploring the interactions between technology, law, and society.

Media Contact: Amy Poftak

Assistant Director of Communications

Stanford Law School, 650.725.7516 poftak (at) law.stanford.edu

Lauren Gelman Executive Director Center for Internet and Society

Stanford Law School(ph) 650-724-3358

BERKMAN INVESTIGATES INTERNET & DEMOCRACY PROJECT TO FOCUS ON MIDDLE EAST and OTHER GLOBAL COMMUNITIES

Cambridge, MA – The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School announces the Internet and Democracy Project, an initiative that will examine how the Internet influences democratic norms and modes, including its impact on civil society, citizen media, government transparency, and the rule of law, with a focus on the Middle East. Through a grant of $1.5 million from the US Department of State’s Middle East Partnership Initiative, the Berkman Center will undertake the study over the next two years in collaboration with its extended community and institutional partners. As with all its projects, the Berkman Center retains complete independence in its research and other efforts under this grant. The goal of this work is to support the rights of citizens to access, develop and share independent sources of information, to advocate responsibly, to strengthen online networks, and to debate ideas freely with both civil society and government. These subjects will be examined through a series of case studies in which new technologies and online resources have influenced democracy and civic engagement. The project will include original research and the identification and development of innovative web-based tools that support the goals of the project. The team, led by Project Director Bruce Etling, will draw on communities from around the world, with a focus on the Middle East. “Around the world, citizens are using the Internet to affect democracies in intriguing and important ways,” said co-Principal Investigator John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center. “But we don’t have a precise view of how this dynamic works. With the Middle East as our primary focus, our goal is to shed light on this phenomenon in constructive ways.”

“We want to help develop and test simple, lightweight tools for civic engagement online – tools that facilitate coordination among people who share a common cause, and good faith dialogue among people who disagree,” said co-Principal Investigator, Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of the Berkman Center and Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University. This project is building on the experience of diverse Berkman Center initiatives aimed at examining the extent to which the Internet is fostering or undermining democratic institutions and processes around the world.

Through the generous support of other donors, the Berkman Center has undertaken projects that include: the H2O Project, which promotes the wide accessibility of academic discourse and teaching materials online; the Citizen Media Law Project, whose mission is to provide legal training and resources for individuals and organizations involved in citizen media as well as provide research and advocacy on free speech, newsgathering, intellectual property, and other legal issues related to citizen media, and; the OpenNet Initiative, which analyzes and documents Internet censorship and surveillance regimes worldwide, jointly with the University of Cambridge, the Oxford Internet Institute, and the University of Toronto.

###

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is proud to celebrate its tenth year as a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, the Center is now home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates working on projects that span the broad range of intersections between cyberspace, technology, and society. More information can be found at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu.

About State of Play V

About State of Play V

Berkman Center Awarded Two Knight Grants for Media Projects

Success of "Global Voices" and "Potential of the Citizen Media Law Project" Recognized by Knight Foundation News Challenge

Cambridge, MA – The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School announced the award of two Knight Foundation News Challenge grants today – the only organization of the 24 winners to receive multiple grants – with both Global Voices and the Citizen Media Law Project acknowledged by the Knight Foundation at the Interactive Media Conference & Tradeshow in Miami.
“We are proud to receive these awards from the Knight Foundation, which not only help to affirm the importance of participatory media, but the need to articulate standards and level the playing field as citizen journalism quickly spreads across a largely unregulated space,” said Colin Maclay, Managing Director of the Berkman Center. Global Voices ( www.globalvoicesonline.org), a curator and aggregator of blogs from around the world, will receive $244,000 over two years to expand its coverage to underserved populations by training new authors in developing nations. Global Voices is an international effort to diversify the online conversation by showcasing speakers from around the world, and developing tools, institutions and relationships to help make these voices heard. Berkman Fellow and Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman thanked the Knight Foundation and praised their recognition of the value that international citizen journalism holds.
“Through all of the success that our project has experienced since it began in 2004, we have become more aware of the difficulties in creating a globally inclusive environment,” Zuckerman said. “We look forward to using this funding for the outreach, training, and technology vital to a more complete and dynamic international dialog,” he added. Global Voices was previously recognized by the Knight Foundation as the 2006 winner of the Knight-Batten award for innovations in journalism.
The project is sustained through foundation and corporate funding, including support from media company Reuters, the MacArthur Foundation, and Hivos, a Dutch foundation.The Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP, http://www.citmedialaw.org/) – a joint Berkman venture with the Center for Citizen Media – will receive a News Challenge award of $250,000 to support the first stage of the project, including conducting research and producing legal guides addressing legal issues faced by citizen journalists such as free speech, libel, newsgathering and intellectual property. The CMLP seeks to build a community of lawyers, academics, journalists, and others who are interested in facilitating citizen participation in online media and in protecting the legal rights of those engaged in speech on the Internet. Berkman Fellow and project director David Ardia noted: “We are excited to get started on what will be an important resource for citizen journalists.” “We are eager to see the CMLP become part of a wider effort to promote journalism generally and hope our work will help to ensure that our legal system fosters an environment suitable for open and robust speech,” he added. The emerging field of citizen media has been a major focus for the Berkman Center since 2003, when weblogging pioneer Dave Winer joined the center as a Berkman Fellow. Since that time, Berkman fellows have included citizen media luminaries such as Doc Searls, David Weinberger, CMLP co-founder Dan Gillmor and Global Voices co-founder Rebecca MacKinnon.
More: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu