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.

Technology policy has never been more critical. Privacy, security and the appropriate balance for copyright are now central policy making challenges, if the economic and social potential of the Internet is to be realized. In this lecture, Professor Lessig will build upon the work of Oxford Professor Jonathan Zittrain to identify a critical dynamic in policy making affecting the Internet, and how technologists have become central to that dynamic. The threats to privacy, security, and the proper protection for copyright are not technical, but political. The remedies to those threats will not just be political, but in an important sense, also technological. Professor Lessig will describe this dynamic, and describe the emerging movement in the United States to address it

Details:

date: 30/04/2008
time: 6.30 pm

members: £35.25
non-members: £52.88

venue: Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2 Savoy Place, London, WC2R 0BL.

Register on the SCL site.

Information governance has rapidly become an integral part of organisational strategy in both the public and private sector. Organisations of all types and size are generating ever greater volumes of sensitive data and that data must be handled lawfully to avoid damaged reputations and unnecessary costs. Breaches of the law can result in enforcement notices, fines and even criminal convictions for directors and managers.

Full details on the SCL site

Speakers include:

Chair:
David Berry, Charles Russell LLP

Vincent Geake, Partnerships UK
Christopher Millard, Linklaters LLP
Tom Ilube, Garlik.
Stephen McCartney, Information Commissioner’s Office
Ellis Parry, AstraZeneca
Gillian Cordall, Maclay Murray & Spens LLP
Roger Bickerstaff, Bird & Bird
Andy Thomas, Garlik

Details

members: £264.38
non-members: £381.88

venue: Mayfair Conference Centre, 17 Connaught Place, Marble Arch, London, W2 2EL

Has there been a shift in political use of the internet and digital new media – a new web 2.0 politics based on participatory values? How do broader social, cultural, and economic shifts towards web 2.0 impact, if at all, on the contexts, the organizational structures, and the communication of politics and policy? Does web 2.0 hinder or help democratic citizenship? This conference provides an opportunity for researchers to share and debate perspectives.

It is a large event with over 40 panels and over 100 papers, with keynotes from:

• Helen Margetts, Professor of Internet and Society, University of Oxford:
  “Digital-era Governance: Peer production, Co-creation and the Future of
  Government.”
• Robin Mansell, Professor of New Media, LSE: “The Light and the Dark
  Sides of Web 2.0.”
• Rachel Gibson, Professor of Political Science, University of Manchester:
  “Trickle-up Politics?: the Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies on Citizen
  Participation.”
• Micah Sifry, Personal Democracy Forum/TechPresident: “The Revolution
  Will Be Networked: How Open Source Politics is Emerging in America.”
• Michael Turk, US National Cable & Telecommunications Association and
  e-campaign manager for Bush-Cheney 04: “Managed Chaos: Bringing Order to
  User-Generated Activism.”
• Stephen Coleman, Professor of Political Communication, University of
  Leeds: (title to be confirmed).

Registration for the conference and affordable accommodation is quick
and easy via our website, where you may also download the full
provisional programme:

http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/politics-web-2-0-conference/

New Political Communication Unit, Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London, April 17-18, 2008.

The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures so users can participate in solutions, becoming true “netizens.” How can we achieve the wisdom of crowds instead of the madness of mobs?

Lecture II: Saving the Internet from Itself (Wednesday 5th March)
Time: 16:00-17:30
Venue: D.502 – Fifth Floor Clement House

The Internet is primed for a meltdown–and the most obvious cures are
just as bad.

The engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation – and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control. iPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and Sky+ represent the first wave of Internet-centred products that can’t be easily modified by anyone but their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in extraordinary but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted – but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet – its “generativity” – is at risk.

Lecture I: The End of the Internet (Tuesday 4th March)
Time: 17:00-18:30
Venue: D.202 – Second Floor Clement House (at LSE)

Materials: the ECJ’s judgment in Case C-275/06 of 29 January 2008 and the Opinion of A-G Kokott of 18 July 2007.

Staff Common Room of the Law Building on Highfield Campus, 1-2pm.

More info on the ILAWS event page.

As the newly opened investigations show, Microsoft is a landmark case for both its findings and future implications. This conference gathers leading experts from the EC Commission and private practice, including those who have been directly involved in the case, as well as from academia. Its objective is to provide an insight into the difficult technical and legal context of the case and facilitate a discussion of its practical impact on the evolution of EC competition law and intellectual property in the IT sector and beyond.

Register and more information on the Birmingham site.

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.

Web 2.0 doesn’t just mean user generated content. It also entails a rapid shift to cloud computing for mainstream consumers. As our work and lives migrate from desktops that we control to servers that we do not, startling opportunities for regulation arise. Considering examples from next generation consumer products and the latest Web 2.0 mashup platforms, this session explains some of the big social worries that await us with twenty-first century computing — and how we might avoid them.

Read the full details on Oxford’s event description.