Confessions of a Mad Librarian

BloggerCon 3

Reg: why is BloggerCon starting at 7:15 am? I got there at 7:45 am.
Continential breakfast: okay, very hi-carb; the coffee has disappeared. There's decaf. Eh.
Wow ... Adam Curry is pretty. Rock star pretty. Like Jon Bon Jovi pretty.

National Anthem session
Intro -- Larry Lessig
Remarks -- Dave Winer
Anthem -- "This Land is Your Land"

I need coffee; after grabbing a chair and a power outlet for the Academia , I go to the bookstore and get coffee. And a cranberry scone with a hint of citrus zest (lemon, I think ... it was really subtle)

Academia -- facilitator: Jay Rosen

Questions
* Why should academics blog?
--Post-scarcity model of information distribution
--Effective classroom tool
--Expansion of ideas outside of the classroom/university
--Can blogging substitute for formal educational models?
--Universities now use CMS to restrict content, not further
* What changes for academics when they blog?
--Possibility of world-wide audience
--More feedback
--"Valuation of knowledge" changes
--Changes in discourse (more challenges, less insulation from confrontation, less control)
--Parallels between journalism as gatekeepers and universities as gatekeepers
* What's the potential effect of blogging on the academic world?
--Blogs as augmentation for academic journals
* Why do academics make good bloggers?
* Blogs v. Blackboard
* Publish or Perish promotion politics
* Value of attending university in the age of blogging
* How can we have more attractive technology for academics?
* What tools can transcend ASCII
* Types & styles, what should be the audience?
* Blogs as effective learning tools for students
* What unique aggregation tools do academics need?
* University policy towards blogs

--Interpretative community: blogs allow for the advertising of interpretative community
--One person can destroy a blog community
--Will blogging become part of the system of gaining tenure?

Jay Rosen wrap-up: Blogging can be disruptive to an institution that has dedicated its to the control of knowledge; blogging is an attack on the DNA of the university

Break: They ran out of coffee again! Ay caramba! Why isn't there a tanker truck from Peet's parked right outside?

Journalism -- facilitator: Scott Rosenberg

Just kickin' it: lots of discussion of whether blogging and journalism are in a manichean, symbiotic, parasitic relationship
Issues of trust, authority, localism, expertise, freedom vs. constraint of approach, global issues/gentrification, transparency

Lunch: By the time I got to the buffet table, the plates were gone (plenty of food left, though). So, I took one of the large, empty, plastic sandwich trays and started to serve myself. A couple of people called me "resourceful".

Election 2004 -- facilitator: Ed Cone
Working session on tools -- don't vent about the election
Having a blog is not enough: how you leverage it is important
Timing is important

What worked and what didn't:

Do political blogs talk AT people or talk WITH people?
More interaction with the community
How digital divide issues affect online political outreach
"... Democrats lost the branding war ..."
Jay Rosen -- getting politicians to write their own blogs / Cone -- top-down or bottom-up? more likely to get local politicians to blog; issues being very popular/TOO popular: does blogging take away from fundraising, or can it drive fund-raising
Inviting politicians as guest bloggers (ex.: Lessig's blog)
Transitioning from election blogging to governance blogging

Law -- facilitator: Larry Lessig

Important law blogs
How can we make blogs immune from IP conflict
"future-proofing innovation against lawyers" -- Lessig

INTRO:

copyright includes the following rights: copy, derivative, distribution, preformance, display, digital preformance

Includes literary, musical, dramatic, choreograph, pantomine, motion picture, sound recording, pictorial, graphic, sculpture works

Current copyright system in the digital space: insanely complicated
"The law is not your friend right now"

Other issues:
Internationalization (ex.: protected, nonlibelous speech here may be considered libelous in the UK and suit may be filed)
Discrepancies between performance & digital performance
Overstatement of copyright (explicit denial of fair use rights)
Intermediaries don't care about fair use: de facto suppression of fair use/chilling effect
Los Angeles Times v. Free Republic.com -- quoting of entire articles

the power of trade associations to lobby and litigate
Lots of money pushing the strong copyright angle; public interest and cyberlaw programs adding lawyers on the other side
computing and software companies are forming effective alliances for lobbying

Current paradigm: copyright holders are rent-seeking

Is it possible to put the Internet into a separate international jurisdiction? Theoretically yes, practically no

IP is a property analogy -- it doesn't scan, IP under strong copyright is so much more restrictive than tangible property rights

Lessig -- not against the 'IP is a form of property' analogy

Is Creative Commons an opt-out of the current conflict, thus allowing the current situation to stand/not be addressed?
Ernie Miller -- Creative Commons is very important

Lessig supports "The Commons Is Good for Business"

Microsoft is now in the content management business; right now, DRM is not cross-platform, thus DRM also enforces proprietary software

How to help the commons: release more compelling content than the "strong rights" - holders; podcasting can help with this.

The new model must be present and proven to be secure and stable, with communities established, before real success in the legislative arena can happen

The artists who are most successful in the copyright system will naturally want to protect their interest; bloggers can be and are the future by 1) organizing and 2) using alternative tools to promote balance/commons/open content.

You can't take your eye off the ball with copyright or other measures of IP control; GPL and CC are not panaceas -- don't build a "dream world" around CC/alternative models without directly addressing the major systems in place (workaround != reform)

Wrap up -- facilitator: Dave Winer

non-conference: A conference for and of the user
a model for future conferences

great networking opportunities within blogging
possibility of creating DMOZ of blogs
BloggerCon as a permanent network
Have discussion leaders do their own write-up of each session
Creating regional BloggerCons / mini-Blogger
Taking BloggerCon to Atlanta / Carter Center
The blogosphere is growing and BloggerCon should go global/reach out internationally
Have a session on RSS/OPML -- concern - it would turn into a developers conference, not a users conference

Lots of discussion/tension on the role of vendors at BloggerCon
All in all, much more instructive (and fun) than I thought