Radio Berkman

The closing of another year brings with it an excuse for celebration. And what could be more fun than looking back at the year that was and trying to distill some of the top trends in the web, technology, and society? David Weinberger attended Supernova 2009 in San Francisco, where some of the biggest names in tech, business, government, and academia came together to talk past, present, and future of networks. He chatted with a number of those thought-leaders, and came away with three major threads for 2009 which might help guide our thinking as we go into 2010: The Broadband Initiative The Growth of Real Time Web The Web and the Obama Administration So curl up by the fire with your generative digital listening device, pop in those earbuds, and listen in as we reflect on three of the major trends of 2009 with David Weinberger. Creative Commons music used this week: Brad Sucks – Gasoline Morgantj – Raindrops

Is it hard to imagine a world in which people are treated fairly? Paid a fair wage for the work they contribute? Rewarded monetarily for the successful intellectual products that they help to produce? Did you just scoff? If so you might be a knowledge worker who toils day in and day out on information goods – products like software, vaccines, or media – just to see the company you work for take the copyright or patent and reap all the rewards from your innovation. A new working paper from researchers at MIT, Boston University, and the University of Michigan shows that people, companies, and the economy as a whole can all benefit and grow when we forget what we think we know about property rights and compensate people fairly for the work they do. Take off your rose-colored glasses, put on your headphones, and listen to this interview with one of those researchers, Marshall Van Alstyne, as he explains how innovation and fair compensation can go hand in hand. CC-licensed music this week: Scott Altham: Hear Us Now (poptastic mix) Neurowaxx: Haram Beat Photo by Kevin Eddy

What if a robot could be your closest friend? Know everything about you? Be able to peruse old family photos with you, read your journal entries, know what you are allergic to, and all your deepest darkest secrets? Put all those romantic notions of science fiction out of your mind. “Digital Companions” are seen by some as a natural extension of computers and the web – and possible within 30 years. Yorick Wilks is a leading researcher on the Companions Project. We sat down with him to find out more about Digital Companions in our every day life. This week’s artist: Robert Rich: Cowell Piano

Is the fate of books a forgone conclusion? Will they just continue to make their way out of print and into digital form? This week’s guest, author Cory Doctorow, suggests that we might want to keep books in print for a little while longer. Not just out of nostalgia – but actually to protect the institution of copyright. Cory Doctorow — a longtime supporter of remixing and free culture, who releases his books under Creative Commons licenses — now throws his weight behind copyright. Huh? Find out what happens when books meet bits on this week’s Radio Berkman. This week’s artists Coconut Monkeyrocket – Accidental Beatnik MorganTJ -Time Decay

The “Walled Garden” is an oft-used metaphor to describe an area of the web that is somehow closed off – think AOL in the 90s, or any site that lives behind a paywall. To some, these areas of the net are exclusive avenues to brilliantly curated content. To others “Walled Gardens” are threats to the open nature of the net. Elizabeth Goodman, a PhD student at the UC Berkeley School of Information and a design researcher with Intel, has taken the metaphor of the Garden back to its roots (so-to-speak), to see if we can’t reimagine web communities through the lens of these physical spaces. CC-licensed music this week: Duckett – Another Girl (instrumental) _ghost – Ice and Chilli

There are few subjects more potentially divisive as the Free Culture Movement. Free Culture activists believe in a future in which people will be free to remix and distribute creative works like literature, movies, music, software, and images. These are the folks who can toss around phrases like ‘Free as in Speech versus Free as in Beer’ to illustrate distinctions in legal code. A world where anyone can feel free to edit a photo, remix a song or video, or modify a piece of software without the constraint of excessive laws or artificial limits – sounds great, right? But it raises more questions than you might think. Gabriella Coleman is an Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University who has given a lot of thought to the role of genre and piracy in how we might build a Free Culture that works. She sat down with our guest host Elizabeth Stark for a word or two on some of the toughest questions facing Free Culture. CC-licensed music this week: Scott Altham – Hear Us Now (poptastic mix) _ghost – Ice and Chilli

Few dispute that the web will be the dominant medium of the 21st Century – swallowing whole newspapers, books, radio, television, and the cinema. And even as the web grows virtually – over a trillion unique urls and growing – it shrinks physically – from laptop, to netbook, from cell phone, to even tinier and ubiquitous communication devices. The growth of the web seems radically different from that of television, radio, and newspapers. It seems like it was so grassroots, so rapid. But Professor W. Russell Neuman of the University of Michigan argues that to predict the growth of the web in the future we need to take a good hard look at just how those 20th Century technologies and infrastructures came to be so dominant. So, what does history have to say about how this tiny little medium will grow? CC-licensed music this week: Neurowaxx: Pop Circus General Fuzz: Warm Steel

Author and Professor of Public Policy Viktor Mayer-Schönberger believes that digital memory is a little too perfect. Every word you post on the web, every picture, every video, tweet, and email is set in stone, archived, permanently findable. Like the proverbial elephant, the digital world doesn’t forget. There are incredible benefits to this. And there might be consequences as well, ranging from invasion of privacy, to the impairment of human memory. David Weinberger spoke with Viktor about some of these consequences, and how we might help our machines learn to forget. CC-licensed music this week: Neurowaxx: Carioca Jaspertine: Pling

Ownership structures for creative works – such as Copyright, Creative Commons, Fair Use, Public Domain – abound. This week, Kenneth Crews, the director of the Copyright Office at Columbia University, speaks with us about some of the distinctions, and the ways to make sure your work is protected as much or as little as possible. CC-licensed music this week: Jaspertine: Pling Greg Williams: Teagarden Blues and Rain

Internet access. Anymore, it’s something many of us take for granted. Like water from the tap, power from the plug, outrageous outbursts from Kanye West. It’s there, it happens – why question it? Sure, there’s a lot of buzz about broadband and net neutrality going on in Washington, and in Geek Caves around the country. But the Net users on Main Street haven’t yet hit a tipping point. The fact is, your average consumer’s web connection isn’t very fast or cheap. But it is just fast and cheap enough that they won’t question, complain, or demand better. What is the ideal web? And how do we get past the consumer complacency to build it? Well, Clay Shirky has some ideas. And we were lucky enough to get an exclusive with him on One Web Day earlier this week. Listen in as he lays out a few visions for the potential of the web. CC-licensed music this week: Coconut Monkeyrocket: “Accidental Beatnik” Podington Bear – Jackie and Floyd

Have you ever said something you wish you didn’t? Put your foot in your mouth? Insulted someone, cursed, or threatened somebody? In the real world, you can whisper your most seditious thoughts, and hope they don’t come back to bite you. Well, online, your comments are archived indefinitely. And if you don’t want those comments traced to you, you can just choose a funny forum name, or remain anonymous. But you are NOT anonymous. Believe it or not most of your anonymous blogs, comments, forum posts, and even emails have tiny digital fingerprints that can lead right back to you. Not a big deal if you’re commenting about how awesome “Blame it on the Rain” was on a Milli Vanilli fan board. But a growing number of online anonymous wordsmiths are being unmasked as they become the subject of civil suits. Sam Bayard, a Berkman Fellow and Assistant Director of the Citizen Media Law Project has his eye on such cases. And today, we’ll try to figure out whether legal action could put online anonymity out of commission forever. CC-licensed music this week: Brad Sucks: Dropping out of School J Lang: Crazy Love

Steve Schultze is a busy fellow. He is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He recently joined the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy as Associate Director. He also is one of the developers behind RECAP – an ambitious and provocative project that seeks to bring publicly available digital court records out from behind a costly paywall. What is RECAP? Find out on this week’s episode! And why are there fees for court records? Steve also just dropped a great working paper that goes into more detail on the topic. If you’re in Washington, DC next week catch Steve’s talk on RECAP at the O’Reilly Gov 2.0 conference on Tuesday, September 8. Naturally we think Steve will make a terrific addition to the Princeton team — congrats, Steve! — and, while we’re sad to lose him, we’re looking forward to stronger ties to CITP and opportunities to collaborate and partner in the future. CC-licensed music this week: Neurowaxx – Pop Circus General Fuzz – Acclimate

From August 13, 2009: The hype shows no signs of abating. Now that people have moved from just talking-about-Twitter, to the more meta talking-about-talking-about-Twitter, we here at Radio Berkman decided to take on the topic from our own perspective and see if there is possibly anything new left to be said about the popular microblogging service. Turns out there is. CC-licensed music this week: Coconut Monkeyrocket: “Accidental Beatnik” Morgantj: Café Connection Neurowaxx: “Pop Circus” Podington Bear: “The Squeaky Song” RAC Remix: Zero (orig. Yeah Yeah Yeahs) Find the full Twitter debate here: http://blogs.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2009/08/13/radio-berkman-supreme-is-twitter-a-revolution-a-debate/

The Berkman Center for Internet Society was blessed with the presence of dozens of interns this summer – some of the best, the brightest, and most energetic folks in the field of cyber study. Four of them came together earlier this summer for a semi-Oxford style debate on a topic of importance. The question: Is Twitter a Revolutionary Force for Social Communication? We excerpted from this debate for this week’s Radio Berkman (listen here), but the full debate is chock full of some great perspectives on whether Twitter is a force for good, evil, or just not such a big deal. Give it a listen!

Is the idea of a mainstream video culture dead? TV news anchors, sitcom stars, and A-list actors are losing ground to the groundswell of citizen journalists, independent web series creators, and the occasional cats falling off of pianos on YouTube. If everyone is a producer, what role will video play in our lives in the future? This was one line of questioning taking place at the first ever Open Video Conference in New York City this past June. In addition to the producer question were questions about the sharing of creative works, and questions about how we can make it technologically cheaper and easier to share, collaborate on, and deliver video in the future. Today’s Radio Berkman is a report back from OVC, with Amar Ashar, Chris Peterson, and Catherine White of the Berkman Center. Special thanks today to Catherine White who gathered audio from the OVC! CC-licensed music this week: Podington Bear – Jackie and Floyd Morgantj – Café Connection