IT Law Journal

administrator May 16th, 2004

e-Law Center Executive Director Attends Harvard Internet Law Program
by Peter Joseph L. Fauni

Prof. Jaime N. Soriano, Executive Director of the eLaw Center, participated in the 2004 Internet Law Program of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society of the Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Internet Law Program is a regular offering of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society to provide a comprehensive survey of the changing legal system that govern the Internet and give the participants from various jurisdictions the opportunity to discuss recent legal developments with leading scholars in the field.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is a pro-active research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study and help process its development. It represents a network of faculty, students, fellows, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and virtual architects working to identify and engage with the challenges and opportunities of cyberspace under a common understanding of the Internet as a social and political space. Current projects include digital media, Internet and politics, net governance, international development and intellectual property.

This year’s program was held at the Austin Hall of the Harvard Law School on May 13-15, 2004. Similar programs were held off-campus in the past, notably in Brazil, Stanford University in the US, and Singapore.

The 2004 Internet Law Program drew 125 participants from 20 countries. Half of the participants though came from the United States. The participants included lawyers, government officials, corporate executives, technology experts, educators, and representatives of cause-oriented, mass media, and research groups.

The program actually started on 14 April 2004 with the launching of online instruction modules accessible only to confirmed participants and moderated by Derek Bambauer, a third year student of Harvard Law School and student fellow at the Berkman Center. Topics included: Copyright and Peer-to-Peer Copying, Alternatives to Intellectual Property, Privacy, Freedom of Expression on the Internet, Legal Regulation on Interconnectivity, Cybercrime, Online BusinessMethod Patents, Domain Names, Jurisdiction and Zoning, and, Access to the Internet.

The participants were also provided with the following four-taped lectures in DVD format for mandatory viewing prior to the on-site sessions: A Crash Course in Internet Technologies, Regulation, The Technical is Political: Access to an Open Information Environment, and Legal Regulation of Digital Media.

During the three-day program at Harvard Law School, leading professors and Internet law experts presented an in-depth and thought provoking discussion on the following subjects: Pornography - An Application of Law, Norms, Market, Architecture, Physical Layer: Wires and Wireless, Logical Layer: End-toEnd, Lessons from the Domain Name Controversy, Content Layer: The Future of Copyright on the Internet, Free Culture, Peer Production of Information, Pressing Issues, Intellectual Property Protection for Code? SCO and the Fight Over Software Patents, Privacy, and The Internet and Politics.

Faculty members of the Harvard Law School who took part in the program were the following:

• Yochai Benkler, Professor of Law at Yale Law School with J. D. at Harvard Law School. He clerked tot US Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and had extensive research and papers on the effects of laws, as well as political and economic theory, that regulate information production and exchange.
• William Fisher III, Hale and Dorr Professor of Intellectual Property at Harvard Law School, Faculty Director of the Berkman Center and specializes in intellectual property law and the implications of Internet and technology on copyright, and author of “Promises to Keep”.
• Jerry Kang, Professor of Law of UCLA and visiting professor of Harvard Law School. His scholarship pursuits include civil procedure, race and communication. He is the author of the leading casebook, “Communications Law & Policy: Cases and Materials”.
• Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law and John A. Wilson Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School. He is the founder of the Berkman Center and Chairman of the Creative Commons. He was a recipient of the Cyberspace Law Excellence Award from the American Bar Association and was named as one of the Scientific American’s “Top 50 Innovators” in 2002. He is an author of various books on cyberlaw, his most recent being: “Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity”.
• Charles Nesson, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Faculty Co-Director and co-founder of the Berkman Center in 1997. He clerked for US Supreme Court Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan and continues to incorporate cutting-edge technology in his law classes.
• Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director and co-founder of the Berkman Center and serves as its first executive director from 1997-2000. His research includes the technologies and politics of control of Internet architecture and protocol and the future of the open source software.

In his ten page Participation Report to Law School Dean Mariano Magsalin Jr. and Mr. Florentino Cayco III, Prof. Soriano said that the program gave him a better perspective of the current issues affecting the Internet from the legal, political, economic and technological perspectives. He also noted that many of the participants are unaware of current developments in technology law in the Philippines.

The Berkman Center for Internet and Society observed that this year’s program was a great success. It was the largest and arguably the best of the 6th Internet Law Programs hosted by the center.

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