INNOVATE / ACTIVATE

I/A 2.0 Session Summary - Open Access

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:33:00 -0400

Michael Eisen (Public Library of Science), David Hansen (Berkeley Law), Margaret Phillips (UC Berkeley Library), Nick Shockey (Right to Research Coalition/SPARC), Ali Sternburg (Washington College of Law PIJIP)

The Research Works Act was just the most recent in a line of bills that seek to legislate on the issue of open access (OA) to research. But private initiatives have operated quietly––or not so quietly––for many years with great success. The goal of the session was to bring create a discussion of all relevant parties to map common paths forward toward greater OA adoption.

Open Access refers to unrestricted access and unrestricted use. Who cares about Open Access? The session leaders believe that libraries, students, scientists and the general public all have an interest in OA. University libraries spend around $1B a year on subscriptions to journals. This money is backed through faculty salaries, buyback subscriptions, students who are paying for it in their tuition, and alumni who pay membership fees.

There is no tension between the consumers and the producers of scientific publishing. Institutions overspend on these scientific journals and if anything, the resources at hand do not actually limit us. Rather, we are limited by the legacy of the systems––mainly the infrastructure––that our predecessors have created for publishing research articles. We are further limited by the fact that the people who work in the scientific field have unfortunately build their careers upon the current system, and they are limited by the inertia of those who run our universities. Scientists are programmed to believe that their careers are based upon their publications, and the more publications in the most prestigious journals, the more renowned you are. The public, however, can only access those journals at a high cost. As David Hansen noted, universities should use be using their influence to push scientists toward open publication of their work, perhaps even as a prerequisite to receiving funding.

What’s being done to remedy this archaic system? Session leaders discussed their efforts in highlighting the feasibility of an open access scientific journal, particularly their work over the last several years to try to undermine the structure of the traditional journal. PLoS ONE, for example, publishes based on whether the research is scientifically valid; there’s no judgment as to how important the particular finding may be. It is now the single biggest scientific journal in the world.

Session leaders urged session participants to join in the brainstorming on how we move in the direction of a system where receipt of public money is conditioned on publication of the research openly.

They also noted the need to raise student awareness. Students should be made aware that their libraries pay thousands of dollars per-subscription, which in turn means higher tuition. Students can contribute in this space by promoting OA at their universities and law schools, and by making it widely known that students at smaller institutions are greatly disadvantaged in their access because their schools cannot afford the exorbitant subscription fees. We need to recognize that the majority of college students in the US are at institutions like community colleges that have very limited access to journal subscriptions.

We also need to recognize that the general public should be interested in OA as tax dollars go to fund research, yet much of the research remains inaccesible. Not only is the the vast majority of research funded by public tax dollars, it is also backed by volunteer labor of student researchers.

In the near future we need to create a system that stores information on who the readers of these journal articles are, what their background is, and why they read the particular articles they do. Such a system could replace the current infrastructure and further the goal of increasing meaningful communication between scientists, thereby furthering scientific innovation.

I/A 2.0 Session Summary - Changing the Conversation about Software Patents in a Post-SOPA World

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:14:29 -0400

Julie Samuels (Electronic Frontier Foundation), Timothy Lee (Ars Technica), Christina Mulligan (Yale Law School Information Society Project)

Before SOPA, we began to see increased attention on technology and policy in Washington D.C. The America Invents Act was the long awaited reform to patent law, but did it actually do anything? Many say no. With recent features in the mainstream media, like This American Life, and high profile cases such as Google v Oracle, Facebook v Yahoo, people have begun paying more attention to and discovering the impact that patents have on their lives. This open discussion, led by Julie Samuels, Tim Lee and Christina Mulligan, looked at strategies for overcoming problems surrounding software patents. In a post-SOPA world, how do we address increased threats to innovation from patent trolls and thickets?

A “one size fits all” patent system doesn’t work but changing the patent system will be a long process. The session leaders identified three main avenues for action: courts, Congress and DIY efforts from the community. These avenues for action, however, have various pros and cons. For example, the courts are obviously highly influential on IP policy but they don’t have a good understanding of software technology and software patents. In Bilski, Justice Kennedy stated that the community has accepted software patents as patentable subject matter; which is a notion that many in the community would likely disagree with. It’s important that we find some way to remedy this discrepancy, as antagonists are likely to take advantage of this misunderstanding.

In creating change, Congress has to be a key player. Congress creates the law but at the same time is highly influenced by lobbyists and industry. Much of the influence is not due to corruption, but rather a lack of information. In the everyday lives of politicians, there is an expectation that they are able to speak fluently on each issue as it arises. Understandably, members of Congress seek out “experts” to brief them, but more often than not, who they end up listening to often leads to an biased assessment of technology. When big companies act, Congress listens. We need to find ways to get more big companies to embrace a new set of norms with respect to software patents.

The above efforts are bringing change, but slowly. The people paying attention are innovators, consumers and activists. We’ve seen some movement on the DIY side, from places like Y Combinator and Engine Advocacy, demonstrating that people are coalescing around the promotion of innovation and the exchange of ideas. The question remains as to how these DIY efforts can use the lessons learned from SOPA to push forward improvements in the software patent world. Striking a chord within the community is critical, and we need to create positive stories and deliver concrete numbers to illustrate the real effects of poor software patent policy.

I/A 2.0 Session Summary - The Empirical Battle Over IP: Data, Damned Data, and Statistics

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:12:08 -0400

Tal Niv (Creative Commons), Joe Karaganis (American Assembly), Glynn Lunney (Tulane University Law School), Colleen Chien (Santa Clara Law)

This panel focused on ways that empirical data is currently used, can be used, and has potential to be used in the future to promote a responsible IP agenda. Kicking off the session, Joe Karaganis presented the American Assembly’s Media Piracy in Emerging Economies Report and discussed the current research deficit. Focusing on traditional incentive for research, Karaganis highlighted how current research structures require that researchers know how their work fits into the social change agenda. While the reward structure is based on more publication and advancing strong niche disciplinary focuses—in order for researchers to actually connect their work to the public—simple writing, simple work and collaboration are key. Karaganis’s work focused on 44 grants presented over 2 years promoting collaborative research. Many of these project blew up (and not in a good way), but this was a meaningful learning lesson in the mission to promote collaborative research. Karaganis also highlighted the boom and bust of IP funding. In the early 2000s, numerous organizations were focused on IP research. But people have left, infrastructure has crumbled, and board pushbacks have increased, resulting in significantly decreased funding. Who will step up? Tech companies? Maybe. Our attention should be on how to best focus the research landscape going forward.

Glynn Lunney, Jr., highlighted the broken state of copyright. While telling the tale of the traditional “incentive story”: that copyright increases revenue to copyright owners; that increased revenues means more creative works; and that more works increase the social welfare––Mr. Lunney humorously debunked this story by indicating that the way the current system plays out, revenues are down yet the amount of creation has thrived. New artists continue to emerge, and while revenue to these artists falter (from $3.2 billion to just under $2 million today)––song production has risen. Mr. Lunney attributed this to declining costs in producing creative musical works; commercial versus consumer copying; background bending labor supply curve (the idea that at some point, an artist gets paid so much, they work a lot less); non-financial motivations; and a superstar-based reward system.

Colleen Chien from Santa Clara Law highlighted the importance of being able to effectively communicate and provide visualizations for the public in order to help them make sense of empirical data related to IP. Chien raised questions about the cost to continue this research, its social benefit, and the impact of patent trolls on small companies (i.e. losing funding, delaying innovation). She promoted humanizing these issues for everyone in order to more effectively motivate action. Particularly with regard to patents, Chien said we need to connect patents to something important, such as jobs or innovation. To do so, she said, we need to personalize research––to tell stories that everyone can relate to and understand.

Tal Niv presented on “Licenses for Free Culture,” acknowledging how everyone knows about and uses “licenses for free culture,” yet the data on the value of doing such remains scant. While the IP maximalist community continues to advocate its data sets (research on how IP promotes higher GDP, for ex.), on the other side of the aisle, information is minimally used and rarely collected in advantageous ways. We need to make this information useful and we need to share this information in a way that shows that open, free works increase visability and better community building, which can turn the conversation in our favor. Data on current licensing schemes is minimal, and there’s much work to be done. Let’s focus on defining clear data fields, and getting qualitative social scientists, lawyers, and the quant geeks (aka experts) involved. We need to build out existing and future databases that are conducive for analysis and promote response to empirical surveys from users and non-users.

The session’s key takeaways: 1) we have declining funding for research into the reasons why minimalist IP policies prove beneficial both economically and societally, yet there’s increased pressure to debunk the IP maximalist agenda’s research (which seems unlimited in resources and united in its narrative); 2) we need to better translate why IP activism matters to people in their everyday lives; and 3) we can’t rest until we’ve conducted meaningful research of our own. We need to focus on long-term change and figure out ways to find, present, and disseminate data that promotes our agenda and can serve as the path forward for the IP activist agenda. Good data leads to good policy; the more credible data we can gather, the more effectively we can demand meaningful policy. Until we can compete with the maximalist IP owners’ agenda and articulate a powerful alternative that is as clear and united in its narrative, we will remain on the defensive.

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Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:15:22 -0400

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I/A 2.0 Session Summary - Mapping the IP Activism Space

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:15:00 -0400

Lila Bailey (Berkeley Law), Andrew McDiarmid (CDT), Peter Maybarduk (Public Citizen), Taylor Gilliland (UAEM)

Participants in this session discussed how the individuals, organizations, and constituencies involved in IP activism can collaborate and build on each other’s work. The discussion began by identifying all of the different organizations represented at I/A 2.0, as well as those not present. Participants then split up into three groups focusing on a different aspect of the IP activism space: geographic, expertise, and working mode. The groups pinpointed a variety of US and international groups and individuals taking action as well as classifications for categorizing the work being done in the space:

Geographic Focus:
Latin America/south America
Middle East and Africa
US/Canada
Asia/Pacific
EU
Global Groups

Working Mode Group:
Policy/advocacy
Academic
Blog/Journalism/media
Grassroots
Litigation
Corporate
Funders
Networking and Convening
Data Collection

Expertise:
copyright
patent
open access
consumer
open knowledge/data
free and open source
Internet intermediaries

The goal of the session was to produce an understanding of the different players’ competencies and contributions to the IP activism space. In addition to highlighting the key players, it was discussed that we need to focus on events where IP activists can unite––forums where we can continue this discussion beyond I/A 2.0. The group formulated the idea that this emergent and growing community can work together to pull in grassroots groups whose missions may not be traditionally aligned with IP activism, but within the post-SOPA environment, they are ready to activate. It is critical that we figure out the reach of all of these groups, bring together organizations not traditionally focused on policy and also tie in traditional human rights organizations. The landscape is vast and growing; it’s time to make connections and help the public visualize the environment so near and dear to so many of us. The map created in the session will be digitized soon and available online.

I/A 2.0 Session Summary - Emerging Technologies / Platforms for Activism: What We Have & What We Need

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:42:09 -0400

Ben Moskowitz (Mozilla), Tony Lai (LawGives), Jim Pugh (Rebuild the Dream)

Activism isn’t new, but the landscape of activism has surely changed. Ben Moskowitz, Tony Lai and Jim Pugh led a three-part brainstorming session to answer two major questions: 1) What are the technology success stories? and 2) What are the biggest unfulfilled needs? The session leaders attempted to answer each question in terms of “what we have” and “what we need.” The answers to these questions will be used to craft a campaign for Right to Research Coalition in the Using Emerging Technologies / Platforms to Run a Campaign session (room 630 12:00 - 1:00 pm Saturday, April 21).
After quick introductions, the session leaders began by identifying themselves and their roles as activist. Ben Moskowitz develops technologies, which are both low friction and distributive. Tony Lai facilitates the connection between innovators and the mainstream. Jim Pugh works on new technologies and online tools to get people involved in activism.

The room then broke out into smaller groups discussing topics such as research, funding, transparency, tools and platforms. Ideas were scribbled down onto sticky notes and used to create a mind map (to be digitized as soon as possible!). The breakout groups then came back together to identify patterns and correlations between “what we have” and “what we need.” The session ended with a board covered with sticky notes, representing connections, issues, and creative chaos.

I/A 2.0 Session Summary - Beyond the Charity Concert: Artists as Activists

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:24:28 -0400

Jess Hemerly (Google), Larisa Mann (DJ Ripley), Erin McKeown (Musician/Berkman Center), Deyden Tethong (Air Traffic Control)

Music creates a social experience where people can engage with each other; it crosses cultural boundaries. Music is an invitation to engagement and is often used as a safe space. This session discussed the experiences and concerns with utilizing artists as activists.
Deyden Tethong and Erin McKeown discussed the significance of artist activist retreats, such as those hosted by Air Traffic Control. These spaces provide artists with the opportunity to find the space/peers to discuss obstacles to activism; experiment with the activism process; find activist-mentors, and provide artists with the time and space “to stop the hustle of running my career” to engage in activist activities. Additionally, Tethong discussed New Orleans as a “place that is what it is now because of artists taking the time to care about what’s going on and taking it to their fans.” However, she also discussed how the “time, money and resources used to promote benefit concerts may not be the best use of artist time or creativity.”

Session leaders also shared their experiences with using music and activism and the difficulty in balancing “making great music that’s also ‘activist.’” In particular, Larisa Mann (DJ Ripley) shared an anecdotal story that raised the issue of the difficulty in bringing together a wide range of audiences to support the cause. Among the factors that she considers in participating in music activism are: the music she plays, marketing, how much to charge, and the audience.

Other issues raised during this session include how to keep the movement going after the music has stopped; how to find the “right” artist to raise the profile and promote the cause, while providing a connection between the cause, the message, and the right audience; moving artist engagement beyond the retweet, to benefit shows and rallys, for example; and the consequences to being an activist with respect to success.

Important takeaways from this session include: the importance of artists knowing and using their fans and network to discuss the activist agenda; the nuances between the DJ and the artist in this conversation (fostering movements that exist; feeling out and processing the environment; and giving the voice to the movement / being spokesperson for the cause); the responsibility of organizers and activists to report back to the artists who support their causes on the progress of the initiative; and defining the success of an artist’s activist movement (do you give up the opportunity to play in front of 20 fans dedicated to the cause? Or do you play to the 20K who may not care?)

Please Take The Copy Culture Survey!

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:33:30 -0400

We’re running a version of the American Assembly’s Copy Culture Survey at Innovate / Activate 2.0. If you have a few minutes, please take it before lunch on 4/21. If we’re lucky, Joe Karaganis will share the results with us!

Take the survey at:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/656398/Copy-Culture-2012

Innovate / Activate 2.0 Livestream

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:13:00 -0400

All sessions taking place in the Banatao Auditorium will be streamed live starting at 2pm Pacific Time at:

mms://media.citris.berkeley.edu/webcast
(if you’re behind a firewall use: http://media.citris.berkeley.edu/webcast)

Unfortunately, Berkeley doesn’t support open formats, so we’re stuck with using Windows Media/Silverlight (p.s. let’s start a campaign to change this!). If you’re using a Mac, you’ll need to download Flip4Mac at:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/products/windows-media-player/wmcomponents

We’re also recording/archiving everything (including breakout room sessions) and will be putting it all up in open formats in the near future, thanks to help from our good friends at Mozilla.

Alexis Ohanian Wants To Hear From You!

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:54:40 -0400

reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian is giving the opening keynote at Innovate / Activate 2.0 on Friday at 2pm PT. Want him to talk about something in particular? Have a question for him? Hit him up on his sub-reddit and let him know what you’re thinking!

Image: Flickr user Alec Perkins under CC BY 2.0 license.

Special Lunch for I/A 2.0 Student Attendees!

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:24:00 -0400

Students attending Innovate/Activate are invited to attend a pre-conference lunch organized by boalt.org and Students for Free Culture. This is a great opportunity to meet likeminded students and get inspired for I/A 2.0.

The lunch will take place in Boalt Hall’s Goldberg Room at noon on Friday, April 20. If you’d like to attend, please email anaenriquez [at] berkeley [dot] edu for more information.

Live Campaign Creation at I/A 2.0

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:18:12 -0400

We’ll be running a workshop on April 21, from 12-1pm, that will create a campaign live for one organization at the conference. The workshop will be led by Laure Parsons (x+x connect), Ben Moskowitz (Mozilla Foundation), Erica Priggen (Free Range Studios), and Colin Mutchler (LoudSauce). If you’d like to submit a proposal to have your organization selected for this, send an email to laure [at] xplusxconnect [dot] com. Please include your name and the name of your organization, relevant URL, the message/issue you want to share, and the current status of the campaign.

reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian to Keynote Innovate / Activate 2.0 @ UC Berkeley

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:24:01 -0500

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of the social news website reddit and vocal opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), will provide the opening keynote address at Innovate / Activate 2.0, an international conference connecting activism and intellectual property, set to take place at UC Berkeley on April 20-21, 2012.

As “one of the more passionate and audacious young entrepreneurs in tech,” Alexis has helped lead the charge to keep the Internet open in face of overreaching IP legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress over the past year.

In addition to his role with reddit, Alexis founded Breadpig, an uncorporation that creates and sells geeky things and contributes their profits to good causes. He also helped launch the travel search company hipmunk, serves as the Ambassador to the East for Y Combinator, and is an angel investor at Das Kapital Capital.

Register here to join us and Alexis at I/A 2.0. And don’t forget to follow us on twitter @innact for updates. See you at Berkeley!

Innovate / Activate 2.0 Open For Business!

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:39:42 -0500

Happy New Year! It’s already been an exciting start to 2012 with the battle over SOPA/PIPA and a perfect time to gear up for Innovate/Activate 2.0, our conference on IP and activism, to be held at UC Berkeley from Friday, April 20-Saturday, April 21. This year, we’ve decided on the themes of “How To” and “DIY Activism” — focusing on concrete ways to get more people involved in IP issues and sharing strategies, tactics, lessons learned, etc. from our current and past campaigns and actions.

We have five big announcements to share with you:

1) Conference Registration is now open

You can register for I/A 2.0 here.

Note that for capacity and planning purposes (especially for food), we are asking everyone to pay something for registration. However, in order to be sensitive to people’s financial situations, we are allowing you to pick your own registration fee, ranging from $5-$100 with some suggestions for student, non-profit/academic, and corporate
participants. However, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. If even $5 is too much, email us at info@innovateactivate.org, and we can discuss scholarships/waivers with you.

2) We are now accepting Session Proposals

If you would like to suggest a session for I/A 2.0, you can do it here.

In line with our conference theme, we are looking for three types of suggestions:

a) Ideas or projects that you would like to share/showcase/workshop;
b) Ideas or projects that you would like to hack/collaborate on with others; and
c) Ideas or projects that you would like to see someone else present on.

Please submit as many different ideas/projects as you’d like. We want to get a broad sense of the possibilities and see where the cutting-edge efforts are concentrated. In particular, we are interested in efforts in the education space, grassroots organizing, meme-making and publicity, making and breaking technologies for activist purposes, empirical research and evidence gathering, and legal/policy interventions. But don’t let this limit you; we’re open to all types of sessions!

3) Logistics

We’ve put up a page regarding conference logistics, including information on air travel, hotels, the conference site, etc. Check it out here.

4) Intellectual Sponsors

Beyond Berkeley Law and NYLS, a number of significant organizations who take action on IP issues have agreed to sponsor the conference. These include the American Assembly, Cambia, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton, the Center for Social Media and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American U., the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, NKU’s Chase Law & Informatics Institute, the Open Video Conference, Peer 2 Peer University, Public Knowledge, Students for Free Culture, and Yale’s Information Society Project. Representatives from all of these amazing organizations will be at the conference and helping us make it a major focal point for IP Activism in 2012. To learn more about our sponsors, see our sponsorship page.

5) Looking for Keynote Speakers

We’ve contacted a few people about possibly keynoting I/A, but we’re always looking for more ideas for great speakers. If you have suggestions, please send them to us at:

keynote@innovateactivate.org.

Thanks again for all your support. Now go register and submit ideas!

Innovate / Activate 2.0 @ University of California, Berkeley Law School

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:41:00 -0500

Save the date! New York Law School’s Institute for Information Law & Policy and Berkeley Law’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic are pleased to present Innovate / Activate 2.0. The event will take place April 20-21, 2012 at Sutardja Dai Hall on the campus of beautiful UC Berkeley. The conference will run from 2-6 p.m. on Friday, April 20, and from 10-4 p.m. on Saturday, April 21.

About the event: Intellectual property regimes seek to benefit society through a variety of incentives, from improving access to encouraging innovation to preserving public knowledge. However, evidence has been building to suggest that there are substantial flaws in the design and implementation of various IP regimes, leading to failures in policy and harms to the public. As a result, active communities have formed to address these shortcomings and the important issues they raise, such as the tension between free speech and efforts to expand copyright’s scope and enforcement tools; the importance of fair use and follow-on creativity; the role of alternative licensing systems such as Creative Commons or the GNU Public License; the appropriateness of patent protection for software and business methods; and the conflict between overpatenting of pharmaceuticals and broad access to medicines and diagnostic technologies. But there’s much more that can be done.

Innovate / Activate is about sharing, discussing, and reexamining our approaches to improving global welfare through identifying new and existing IP-related activism efforts, developing strategies for overcoming IP obstacles, and delivering practical solutions to spur change.

More details to follow. In the meantime, follow us on twitter @innact and check out the Past Events page to learn more about last year’s event and how you can get involved. We look forward to seeing you at Berkeley this Spring!

Photos from Innovate / Activate 1.0

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:31:00 -0500

Photos from Innovate / Activate 1.0

Videos from Innovate / Activate 1.0

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:23:00 -0500

On September 24-25, 2010, the New York Law School Institute for Information Law & Policy and the Yale Law School Information Society Project convened the Innovate / Activate Unconference on Intellectual Property and Activism, an event made possible by the generous support of Google. Innovate / Activate brought together over 100 students, academics, activists, and professionals from all across the IP and activism spectrum to examine the ways in which we can improve global welfare through the thoughtful consideration of IP.

Innovate / Activate 1.0 was host to nearly 50 presentations covering an enormously wide spectrum of topics. More information about Innovate / Activate 1.0 can be found on the Past Events page. Video of all of the presentations can be found here.