Radio Berkman

With the November elections behind us here in the US Jonathan Zittrain and Lawrence Lessig take on the issue of money in politics, and investigate how campaign contributions sway candidates for office and influence policy.

In the face of a campaign finance system struggling to find a more ethical framework, Larry suggests a new basis for citizen funded elections, Democracy Vouchers. Jonathan inquires as to what a Democracy Voucher is and just how the heck such a system would work.

What are your thoughts? Any compliments or criticisms? What topic would you like to see Jonathan and Larry take on next month? Share your ideas with us in the comments, or drop us a tweet.

CC-licensed Music this Week from Morgantj and Scott Altham.

Photo courtesy of Amar Ashar.

Produced this week by Daniel Dennis Jones and Molly Sauter, with hosts Larry Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain, and help from David Weinberger, Amar Ashar, Jake Shapiro, Lisa Carlivati, and Szelena Gray.

Wikipedia is now likely the top return on almost any web search you do. But how did it get to be that way?

The collaboratively edited online compendium of human knowledge is at once reviled by highbrow scholars who make strict rules about its use as a cited resource, and at other times lauded as the greatest example of the power of human cooperation and the web.

Joseph Reagle has just completed an exhaustive study of the resource entitled Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia. The book sheds light on how tens of thousands of volunteers overcame great obstacles—lack of scholarly experience, and nearly insurmountable differences in viewpoint—to build a culture that, in spite of all reason, works.

Joseph, a Berkman Fellow, sat down with David Weinberger to share some key insights from his research.

A lot of e-ink has been spilled about how the Internet has fundamentally altered content industries. TV, film, news, books; all are still experiencing growing pains.

But, no other industry has experienced more trauma and volatility than music. One of the first victims of the electronic piracy epidemic, music companies, along with artists and policymakers, have been scrambling to find new solid strategies for success.

Meanwhile, innovation has flourished in the form of new means of delivering content, new ways of connecting artists with fans, and evolving models for digital music sales and touring, all of which present countless opportunities and risks.

Next spring, the Berklee College of Music and MIDEM, in association with the Berkman Center, are hosting the Rethink Music Conference, bringing together artists, industry representatives, policymakers, educators, and innovators to discuss this very issue: the future of creative works, their distribution, and the laws that regulate them.

Berkman and Berklee have also announced a Call for Papers seeking innovative proposals to amend US policy regarding creation and distribution of musical works. And, Berklee and the Harvard Business School are offering a $50,000 award for the best new music business model.

We sat down with two people who have been very involved in preparing for the event—Allen Bargfrede, a digital music lawyer and Assistant Professor in the Music Business Department at Berklee, and Chris Bavitz, Assistant Director of the Berkman Center’s Cyberlaw Clinic and Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School—to discuss what the Rethink Music Conference is all about.

The future of video lies within our grasp, people.

Powerful new technologies and web services are available that not only make video available anytime, anywhere, but also make sharing and creating easier than ever, all over the world. Think of the smartphone revolution; the explosion in high bandwidth connectivity; and the millions of channels available to make your video available to your friends, or the world.

But this future is still elusive at best. Think of remixers sued for using copyrighted content; the fact that most networks in the world are still choked or filtered; and a simple, but threatening lack of media literacy.

Today we report back from a conference meant to redefine the future of video for the good.

The 2nd Annual Open Video Conference brought together filmmakers, students, thinkers, inventors, hackers, businessfolks, and lawyers for panels, screenings, performances, and exhibits, all focused on the future of video.

We talked with Tiffiniy Cheng and Holmes Wilson, co-founders of the Participatory Culture Foundation, about some technologies in the works to make video more accessible. We spoke with keynote presenter Adam Chodikoff, senior producer of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, about the value of the mainstream media. And we put together our own ad hoc panel to help us define what Open Video means and how we can get it.

Whitney Harper is the central figure in one of the most recent anti-piracy court battles being waged by the Recording Industry Association of America. She’s only one of any number of accused illegal downloaders.

But what makes her case different?

Whitney could be considered an “Innocent Infringer”—because she did not understand she was illegal filesharing. But whether this distinction matters depends on the outcome of her trial, which may soon be headed to the US Supreme Court.

Charles Nesson spoke with both Whitney and her legal counsel, Kiwi Camara.

Net Neutrality.

What started out as a high level policy debate among internet service providers and telecommunications geeks has since blossomed into an all out war, with battle lines ostensibly drawn between those who value free expression and innovation on one side, and free market advocates on another.

The idea is that ISPs should not be allowed discriminate between any kind of content that comes over the wires to your home. The implication is that some regulator needs to step in to make sure this idea is enforced.

But as with any contentious debate there are subtleties, complications, and hints that the discussion should be steered in a completely different direction. And few have a better acuity for the nuances of such a geeky topic than Jonathan Zittrain and Larry Lessig.

What should be the mission of universities in cyberspace? What can universities contribute to the future of the internet? How can our educational institutions promote ideals of free exchange of information yet cope with the complex intellectual property challenges presented by the net?

A group of academic experts, University professors, administrators, and innovators met up to discuss solutions to this very issue at a conference entitled University and Cyberspace: Reshaping Knowledge Institutions for the Networked Age earlier this summer.

Charles Nesson was one of those participants. He joined David Weinberger in the studio to talk about how the University can tackle these challenges head on.

So it looks like you guys liked “Zittrain and Lessig Take On… Competition!” Last week’s season premiere of Radio Berkman drew the largest number of listeners and tweets in our show’s history! Jonathan Zittrain and Larry Lessig co-host a definitive tour of how the competitive landscape for the digital technology market has evolved in the 12 years since the famous Microsoft antitrust battle. Give it a listen if you haven’t already.

Are you ready for a second helping?

Ever wondered how Microsoft got in trouble in the first place? Google’s got all those little apps and widgets that run our lives — is that legal? And could Apple’s Steve Jobs be the next to get hauled in front of a federal judge?

This week segment producers (and non-lawyers) Daniel Dennis Jones and Molly Sauter take on “Competition” in plain English, with viewpoints from Ken Auletta, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Gary Reback, Phil Malone, and Brian Chen.

The year was 1998. Cher’s autotune anthem Believe was one of the year’s biggest hits, Titanic had swept the Oscars, and in some sterile software campus in the Northwest, Bill Gates was rehearsing a deposition.

It’s been over 12 years since Gates’ and Microsoft’s anti-trust battle with the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission first hit the courts. It is still seen as a watershed for the management of technology companies in the dot com age.

But in the dozen years that have passed, people are still speculating whether the anti-trust case against Microsoft made any difference, and whether the software and technology companies of today are engaging in anti-competitive practices similar to or more risky than the ones that got Microsoft in trouble.

Who are the Microsofts of today? Facebook? Apple? Google? And how do we manage competition in the digital age?

Today, two of the leading minds on the internet and law, Jonathan Zittrain and Larry Lessig, take on competition.

Noise is distracting and irritating enough in the real world. Our focus is easily disrupted by unwanted clutter and sounds from our surrounding environment. So we often find ourselves turning to digital spaces to try control the chaos, and concentrate on tasks.

But noise still exists in the virtual world, and is often more insidious. Digital distractions disguise themselves as useful information — posts from friends on Twitter and Facebook, text messages, email, and instant messaging. Separating the noise from the signal is often an arduous and personalized task.

And as a new generation of youngsters grows up with mobile phones and uninterrupted network connectivity, researchers fret about a possible information overload and its effects on attention span.

Today’s guest, Kate Crawford, is an Associate Professor in Media Research at the University of New South Wales. She has spent some time researching how noise inserts itself into our lives, particularly through mobile technologies. She spoke with David Weinberger about the history of noise and how noise lives on in the digital world.

Music this week from Clone: “Private Reserve” (composed by Kate Crawford and Bo Daley)