As per usual, the co-chairs are Lilian Edwards, Professor of Internet Law, University of Southampton, and Director of ILAWS, and Andres Guadamuz, Co-Director, (fo the newly re-branded) SCRIPT Law and Technology Centre at the University of Edinburgh.

So if you…

have a paper burning for the oxygen of publicity on any aspect of law AND technology, science, geek culture, blogs, popular culture, wikis, science fiction or fantasy, computer games, digital culture, gender on-line, MMORPGS, virtual property or online human personae, then come to the third edition, GikIII.

Abstracts are due by 15 July 2008 — see the GIKII site for details.

The First COMMUNIA Conference 2008 is scheduled for Monday 30 June and Tuesday 1st July 2008 in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (30 km south of Brussels). It is co-organized by the Communia Thematic Network and the GICSI-EU initiative.

The main theme is the Assessment of economic and social impact of digital public domain throughout Europe.

The Conference aims at initiating a “stock taking exercise” of the impact of public domain initiatives in the fields of public sector information, libraries, archives, scientific research and creative works in Europe. The event is mainly aimed at promoting the public domain by building capacity for scientific assessment of social and economic impacts, and promoting analysis of legal impediments. The conference will draw upon the extensive information on open access practices that is available, although often in an informal manner, within major networks and stakeholders in Europe.

The following issues will be specifically addressed during the conference:

- What are the objectives of the open access commons?
- What are the existing legal, institutional and normative mechanisms that are adopted in different open access initiatives in the fields of public sector information, libraries, archives and creative works in Europe ?
- How to assess the economic and social impact of selected cases ?

We welcome papers submission particularly related to the following topics:

1. Libraries and archives
2. Public sector Information
3. Creative works
4. Scientific research
5. Publishing intermediaries
6. Emerging Issues

The aim of the call for papers is threefold:
1. to build a repertory about the usage of open access licenses (under different forms) in EU,
2. to evaluate social and economic benefits of open access initiatives, and
3. to discuss proposals for mitigating economic and legal obstacles.

This is a conference with what looks like some workshops led by Professor Lionel Bently (Cambridge), Dr Jennifer Davis (Cambridge) and Professor Jane Ginsburg (Columbia Law School).

From the site (emphasis mine):

An interdisciplinary conference for invited scholars from a variety of disciplines to consider piracy and copyright infringement from the perspectives of their fields. Several lines of inquiry will be pursued: piracy and moral opprobrium; appropriation of “expressions” (as opposed to “ideas”); justifications for appropriation of expression (fair use; fair dealing). The fields represented include literature, music, history of the book, criminology, anthropology, information technology, comparative law, legal history, linguistics, and economics. Each non lawyer presenter will be paired with a legal commentator.

Register and more information from the CIPIL site.

13.00 to 14.00, Lecture Theatre 270, Old College, South Bridge.

For more information, contact john.anzani@ed.ac.uk or see the AHRC Centre events page.

Is home downloading killing music? Should Internet Service Providers monitor customers to try and spot copyright infringement, and disconnect downloaders? Do musicians need new laws to benefit from the opportunities of the Internet?

Join us to debate these questions and more with leading copyright thinkers from the music world, government, consumer groups and universities. Confirmed speakers include John Kennedy (CEO of IFPI), Paul Sanders (CEO of PlayLouder), Becky Hogge (Open Rights Group), Lilian Edwards (Southampton University), Rufus Pollock (Cambridge University) and Michelle Childs (Knowledge Ecology International).

March 19, 2008 2:00 pm – 5:30 pm, London (at LSE). Register (free) at EventBrite.

This two day conference is the culmination of a research project involving the creation of a digital resource concerning the history of copyright in five key jurisdictions; France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, for the period before 1900. The project involves the selection of certain key documents, their digitisation, transcription, and translation. The project will create a free electronic archive of primary sources from the invention of the printing press (ca1450) to the Berne Convention (1886): in facsimile and transcription, translated and key word searchable.

Keynotes: Professor Mark Rose University of California Santa Barbara , Professor Laurent Pfister University of Versailles Saint-Quentin and Professor Karl Nikolaus Peifer Köln University.

Location: Stationers Hall, London

Registration information and full details available on the Conference website.