Policy, 2012.
Regulation 2.0, trust & safety, net neutrality, the law catching up
- Networks Under Threat
There is a practically non-stop flow of threats to the Internet. That’s because the Internet is fundamentally empowering and therefore also threatening to those whose power is diminished. This week, there are two big things on the forefront, which my colleague Albert has written up today. Both iss...
- Copyright Reform, Peer Progressives, and the New GOP
It’s been a fascinating few days in the politics of information. Late in the day last Friday, the House Republican Study Committee released a report that took a fresh look (for American major political parties) at copyright reform, which has since set off a firestorm. The report addresses three comm...
- Bureaucracy and Trust
Yesterday, I spent the day at a meeting on “city innovation” at Harvard’s Kennedy School, with 30 or so CIOs, CTOs, and other technology executives from around the country. I did a short presentation on predictive analytics and cities (slides here) — thanks so much to everyone who sent in comments a...
- The Right to Resell
Just one of the many stories to get overshadowed by #frankenstorm today is the opening arguments of Kirtsaeng vs. Wiley in the Supreme Court. This case will test whether we (as in, citizens of the US) have the right to re-sell items which may contain copyrighted components that were originally sold...
- The Taxi Business & Working for Sellers & Buyers
I am writing this from 30,000 feet on my way to San Francisco. I have a great car service which I use every week when I travel. This morning, I ended up having a long conversation with Reda, one of my regular drivers, about Uber and how it’s shaking up the taxi and car service business.… Continue r...
- Future Perfect, Peer Progressives, and the Continuing Crusade to Debunk
Steven Johnson, one of my all time favorite writers and thinkers has a new book out: Future Perfect – The Case for Progress in the Networked Age. Go buy it; I’ll be here when you get back (I love it when bloggers say that — I almost always do it myself). In Future Perfect, Steven… Continue reading
- The Clothesline Paradox and the Hidden Economies of the Web
Yesterday, I wrote a guest post on the Google Public Policy blog on “the clothesline paradox and the hidden economies of the web“, fleshing out an idea that was raised at the USV Hacking Society event back in April. I’ll include the video, below, of the conversation that kicked off this thinking: T...
- IP Enforcement Strategy
Today is the last day to submit comments to the White House on its plans for Intellectual Property enforcement for the coming year. This is yet another act in the fight for the future of everything, and it’s a relatively obscure and quiet one (as we expect many more will be, in the wake of… Continue...
- Advocacy in the Age of Peak Guilt
Yesterday, I spent the day at the Awesome Summit — the first wholesale gathering of folks involved with the Awesome Foundation. In case you don’t know, the Awesome Foundation is a “micro foundation”, where each month, a group of 10 “micro trustees” donates $1000 (total; $100 per trustee) towards a p...
- The Internet Defense League
Today marks the launch of the Internet Defense League, an effort led by Fight for the Future to build permanent infrastructure for defending the internet. The idea is simple: build a loose, permanent coalition of individuas, companies and websites that stand at the ready to react to threats to the i...
- Hacking Society
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of being part of an event called Hacking Society — I helped organize the event w/ the folks at Union Square Ventures, and it was a real honor to spend a day surrounded by many of my internet heroes. It’s taken us a little while, but we’ve… Continue reading
- Institutions and Abuse
For the past few months, it seems like I can’t read the news without coming across another horrifying story of sexual abuse within “esteemed” institutions. Today marks the release of the “Freeh Report” — the independent analysis of what happened at Penn State with Jerry Sandusky. The Washington Pos...
- Fights for the Future on Many Fronts
One of the things I’ve learned over the past few months is that the fight for the future is being fought on many, many fronts — and these fights take all shapes and sizes, and are constantly shifting and re-forming. Here are a few that are hot this week — each of which will be… Continue reading
- Thinking about Freedom
For the past few weeks, I’ve been involved with a community effort to draft a declaration of freedom for the Internet. On Monday, it went live on the web, and is starting to get discussed. It’s been an amazing, fascinating and inspiring year in the internet community. Today, the Verge has a nicely...
- Hacking Patents
Last week at the Media Lab, we had the pleasure of hosting USPTO Director Dave Kappos and several members of the PTO’s senior staff, to brainstorm ways that we might use technology in creative ways to help the patent office work better, and to help the patent system work better in general. The meet...
- Creativity and Free Culture
This morning started out in such a great way. I’m on a mailing list at the Media Lab called “awesome”, and this morning Kasia Hayden sent around a link to this incredible piece of creative work: It’s a marriage proposal presented as a “live lip-dub” of Bruno Mars’ “Marry You“. Basically a live mus...
- Corruption: Make it your #2 Issue
Continuing my series of posts on this week’s Freedom to Connect conference, here is Larry Lessig‘s closing keynote. It was a big thrill for me to see Larry deliver one of his trademark presentations in person. I remember the first time I saw one online: his Free Culture introduction from OSCON 2002...
- Step Number One: Internet Access
In the spirit of posting highlights from this week’s Freedom to Connect conference, I’d like to next point to the talk given by former FCC chairman Michael Copps, entitled “Step Number One to Getting our Democracy Right”. Here’s the video: The full text is here, and it’s probably a quicker read tha...
- Innovation Under Austerity
Yesterday at the Freedom to Connect conference, Eben Moglen delivered a fantastic talk entitled “Innovation Under Austerity”. It’s about an hour long and is really worth the watch. Eben lays out, in clear, compelling terms, the case for open, decentralized, bottom-up innovation as the clearest way ...
- Netizen Effects
Last week, Twitter did something big: they introduced a new patent assignment agreement that binds them to use their patent arsenal only for defensive purposes. In an environment where things are getting ugly in software patent land, this is a bold move. The agreement (here on GitHub), which they’l...