Topic: Digital Rights
FON, the largest WiFi community in the world, is powered by the belief that the internet should be everywhere there are people. Building a network from the ground up, FON members willingly share their wireless access at home. In return, they enjoy free WiFi and VOIP wherever they find another member's access point. In this talk, entrepreneur Ejovi Nuwere explains the energy behind the FON movement for "everyone, everywhere" internet access, driven by the explosion of ubiquitous bandwidth and WiFi-enabled devices.
Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps issues a call to arms to small, medium, and large technology firms to get involved in the net neutrality debate. This issue is a part of a much larger national discussion over media consolidation, which currently poses a threat to innovation, diversity, and the independent voices critical to maintaining a robust civic dialogue in any democratic society. He states very clearly that all is not well in Washington when it comes to technology policy and there is a need to get involved and do something about that.
As issues of fraud and other similar activities continue to occur in online settings, businesses and organizations must come up with ways to secure data and establish methods to verify identities. Greg Pierson, President/CEO of Iovation, Inc. discusses these issues with Denise Howell. His company has developed methods to establish a "digital identity" for individual devices. He also discusses upcoming rules issued by the Federal Financial Examination Council regarding customer authentication.
"Net neutrality" is a principle that specifies that all participants on the Internet travel on the same virtual highways at the same speed regardless of their ability to pay. This doesn't mean that companies can't pay for super fast servers or high-speed access but it means that the speed that data is routed over the Internet infrastructure itself is based on available bandwidth. In this conversation with Larry Magid, Craig Newmark of Craigslist talks about why Net Neutrality is important.
At the 2006 O'Reilly Media Emerging Telephony Conference, David Isenberg recited a hilarious Dr. Seuss-style poem, a call to arms against a proposed U.S. telecom bill. The new law would create a tiered, prioritized telecommunications industry, where ISPs would have the right to provide preferential access to their own VOIP and IPTV services for customers on their networks. [Due to language, this program is not family/work safe.]
In this keynote presentation from the 'road to convergence' forum by First Tuesday in Zurich, Switzerland, Paul Hitchman talks about the changing landscape of music distribution and licensing. Paul is a co-founder of PlayLouder, a "Music Service Provider," and in this talk he asserts that it is now only voluntary to pay for music. He also addresses the role of P2P, DRM and other technologies and paints a vision for the future for music creators and consumers.
The internet offers a degree of freedom unlike any space in the physical world. When you come across something on the internet you dislike, you simply move on. In this conversation with Esther Dyson, participants in the Accelerating Change 2005 conference discuss the unique problem of internet regulation in this climate of freedom. [Accelerating Change Audio from IT Conversations]
What does free WiFi have to do with revenge? And what can you do with last year's high tech gizmo that is worth less than a dollar today? Science fiction author, blogger and Internet activist Cory Doctorow speaks with Dave Slusher about wireless community networks, high tech art made from trash, free speech and his new novel.
Host Ernest Miller along with Denise Howell and Charles (C.E.) Petit disect the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous ruling overturning a District Court in the case of MGM v. Grokster. The decision that says Grokster could be found guilty of an "act of inducement" by encouraging (or not discouraging) its users to share infringing files. The panel also considers the implications for publishers, software developers, hardware manufacturers and IT shops, and looks specifically at the outlook for BitTorrent. [The Importance of the Law and IT audio from IT Conversations]
Do you watch TV? Listen to music? Use a phone, camera, computer, the web (oh, the list is endless!)? Well then, you should get to know Fred von Lohmann because in some sense, he's "your" lawyer. As Senior Intellectual Property Attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fred's work shapes the law and public policy of modern 'technology' life. In his interview with Denise Howell, Fred reveals that in addition to being one of California's most influential lawyers, he is smart, funny, and wields a mean light saber [Sound Policy audio from IT Conversations]
