Podcast appearances and mentions of Yochai Benkler

In this first episode of GETTING-Plurality's Conference on the Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence, listeners can tune into the opening remarks given by Allen Lab Director Danielle Allen, as well as the Lightening Talks panel which includes speakers Yochai Benkler, Harvard University; Sharon Block, Harvard University; and Noman Bashir, MIT. The mission of the Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation is to develop ideas and foster practices for equal and inclusive, multi-racial and multi-ethnic democracy and self-government. Visit the Ash Center online, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. For updates on the latest research, events, and activities, please signup for our newsletter.Music is Wholesome by Kevin McLeod.

Yochai Benkler is a professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Klein Center […] The post Yochai Benkler on Tech’s True Forces: Capitalism, Institutions, and Ideological Impact appeared first on Luminary.fm.

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While Melissa is on maternity leave Ali is having guest hosts from our Patreon do their own episodes! How does the art of conceptual artist Marina Abramović inspire an entire conspiracy on Spirit Cooking?? Listen to find out!This episode has excerpts read from:The Propaganda Pipeline: Hacking the Core from the Periphery by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal RobertsWhen Marina Abramovich Dies by James WestcottWebcrawlerspod@gmail.com626-604-6262Discord / Twitter / Instagram / Patreon / MerchSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/webcrawlers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Yochai Benkler, a professor at Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.With only weeks until Election Day in the United States, there's a lot of mis- and disinformation flying around on the subject of mail-in ballots. Discussions about addressing that disinformation often focus on platforms like Facebook or Twitter. But a new study by the Berkman Klein Center suggests that social media isn't the most important part of mail-in ballot disinformation campaigns—rather, traditional mass media like news outlets and cable news are the main vector by which the Republican Party and the president have spread these ideas.So what's the research behind this counterintuitive finding? And what are the implications for how we think about disinformation and the media ecosystem? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Intro.(2:22) - Start of interview.(3:04) - Aaron's "origin story". He grew up in New Jersey. After law school he founded a tech company focused on user generated content that got bought by Wikia (the for-profit sister company of Wikipedia). He later practiced law at a few law firms before joining the faculty at Cardozo Law School in 2014. He got interested in Bitcoin early on, and collaborated on the launch of Ethereum. He co-authored a book called The Rule of Code, Blockchain and the Law (2018). He's been constantly playing around with the technology itself and he co-founded OpenLaw, which makes it easy to create legal agreements that work with Ethereum. Most recently he's been spending a lot of time pulling together a bunch of DAOs.(5:13) - How blockchain can disrupt corporate governance. The history of DAOs (6:35). Dan Larimer's Decentralized Autonomous Companies (DACs) article (2013). The concept of DAOs picked up with the Ethereum blockchain. Beyond just corporations, to organizations generally. A lot of people think about blockchain as a system to transfer value in a fast way (~12 mins for Bitcoin and ~12 secs for Ethereum). But beyond this transfer of value, blockchain can also be understood as a system to coordinate disparate people with a set of smart contracts. This allows a new way to structure organizations.(12:13) - The story of The DAO (2016). "It was pretty revolutionary in terms of its objective." After the project got hacked, it led to "quite a dramatic (governance-related) decision to fork the Ethereum network." For a number of years, people had "PTSDAO", they were afraid of other hacks. "But about 2-2.5 years ago that started to change, PTSDAO began to wear off and developers began to look at this problem again." New DAO platforms and tooling emerged, the most notable example of them was Moloch DAO (it provided grants to Ethereum projects). More innovation followed, and DAOs were capable of not only giving grants but also making investments. "There has been a sort of explosion of DAOs." To put some numbers to it, "In Feb 2019 there was ~$10m in these DAO like structures with ~2,000 users, today depending on the numbers you look at, it's north of $10bn with several hundreds of thousands of users."(20:30) - His article "The Rise of DAOs: Opportunities and Challenges" (Stanford Journal of Blockchain, Law & Policy, 2021). Questions on legal frameworks for DAOs: partnerships, LLCs, new state DAO LLC laws: Vermont and Wyoming. Unincorporated Non-Profit Associations (UNAs). Wrapped and unwrapped DAOs. How to think about interests in DAOs (securities or something different like member-managed partnerships). Separating economic and governance rights. Are tradable governance rights securities? Grey zone.(29:58) - His take on The LAO (the DAO that he co-founded focused on venture investments). "This was an effort to reboot the original The DAO concept but in a compliant US law format." It's structured as a Delaware LLC, with changes in its operating agreement that waived fiduciary duties and conflicts of interests. Core decision-making was delegated to a smart contract (code). They pooled capital (in Ether), members were only permitted to purchase up to 9% of the LAO (most purchased between 1-2%). There are about 75 members, scattered around the world, chatting via discord, all decisions are made via blockchain-based voting. "It's created a hive-mind." "Instead of having a few people in charge like in a VC fund, you have a collective group." "The decision-making has been pretty great." "The members of the DAO have been able to move faster than traditional VC funds, generating a higher rate of return (still early so TBD) and better at predicting the future of the market, such as with NFTs." "A network of capital deployers"(37:21) - On DAOs' decision making (7 day voting period), rough consensus (no quorum requirement) and internal mechanisms. Faster and better decision-making (time will tell if the latter is true). Each member is provided with "ragequit" rights (automatic redemption rights). "[I]t usually happens at the beginning, when they join a DAO and they either don't have the time to participate and they feel they should, or they decide they didn't like the opportunity as much."(41:20) - On FlamingoDAO and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Inside TheLAO many members wanted to back NFT projects. A question emerged internally to either invest in the projects or buy the art. They decided to do both. In Oct 2020 Flamingo DAO was born. Now they have 9 different DAOs ("about $200m in ETH has been contributed to these DAOs", over 200 people):The LAO (VC investments, it can invest in equity or tokens, could lead a round, draft a term sheet, nominate a board member who could be any member of the DAO - it hasn't done so yet). How people can become members (accredited investors).Flamingo DAO (NFT projects and art). "It started with a contribution of about 6,000 ETH ($6M at the time) and now if new members want to join they are valuing Flamingo DAO's interests at over $1 billion." (in just a year of existence!)Neptune DAO (DeFi)Neon DAO (Metaverse). "It was opened up last week, it took 40mins to close. It's a $20 million vehicle." ("that process for a VC fund or hedge fund would take 3-6 months.").Red DAO (digital fashion)ReadyPlayer DAO (gaming)Museo (NFT-native museum, art collection)Two more in development.(52:33) - On Sequoia's move to a permanent fund, "[I]t mirrors the structure of our DAO network." The LAO operates like a DAO of DAOs (like Sequoia's permanent fund).(53:59) - His fascination with DAOs: "a lot of it is corporate governance theory at its core." "Blockchain technology is providing a laboratory to play around and geek out on corporate governance." "Maybe [in a digital world] it's better: 1) to have rough consensus voting instead of quorum voting, 2) to have a broader base of decision makers for investing instead of a few people [like in a traditional VC fund], 3) to have more flexible redemption rights instead of lock-up windows or capital calls, 4) to have people provide more capital upfront, 5) to delegate voting rights to other members (different ways to provide proxy voting).(56:49) - His favorite books:Infotopia by Cass Sunstein (2006)Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek (1944)Fans, Bloggers and Gamers. Exploring Participatory Culture. by Henry Jenkins (2006) The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler (2006)Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace by Lawrence Lessig (2000)(58:02) - His mentors:Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia).Gil Penchina (former CEO of Wikia).When he was a lawyer in private practice he learned a lot from the litigators and corporate attorneys he worked with.David Roon (co-founder at OpenLaw, soon to be re-named Tribute Labs)Brett Frischman (mentored him at Cardozo Law School)(1:00:05) - An unusual or absurd habit that he loves: loves walking.(1:00:30) - The living person he most admires: his mother.Aaron Wright is an Associate Clinical Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School; Co-Founder at OpenLaw, The LAO, FlamingoDAO.You can find him on Twitter @awrigh01If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing this podcast on social media. __ You can follow Evan on social media at:Twitter @evanepsteinLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack https://evanepstein.substack.com/Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Sherry Aske, former CBC multimedia journalist, and Elizabeth chat about the fourth estate and the networked fourth estate. They dive into the origins of theories and the range of information producers that make up the networked fourth estate. Sherry and Elizabeth also reflect on the power dynamics at play between actors in the networked fourth estate and what that means for who gets heard in the current media environment.Additional ResourcesThis open-access academic journal article by Yochai Benkler (2011) introduces the concept of the networked fourth estate. Wikipedia provides a good sketch of the notion of the estates of the realm which is where the idea of the fourth estate comes from. Elizabeth notes that Anonymous and WikiLeaks are groups connected to the networked fourth estate. Here is a recent summary of Anonymous's recent activities. Benkler discusses the role of WikiLeaks in the networked fourth estate in the journal article above.Elizabeth also mentions previous episodes of the podcast on the high-choice media environment and assemblages. Sherry references the Edelman Trust Barometer's gauge of the public's trust in news media. 

Join Sam and Chris as they unpack the latest in extremism, disinformation and generally all the nasty stuff online. They're joined by Yochai Benkler, Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, as well as Melissa Ryan, who runs newsletrer ctl-altright-delete, aiming to counter disinformation in US politics.

Yochai Benkler and Rob Faris present their recent research that assesses how asymmetrically polarized media in the United States shape political discourse and explains how the structure of media ecosystems sustains two starkly different versions of reality in American politics. This talk draws upon research into the propagation of disinformation about mail-in voter fraud and an analysis of political discourse in the first five months of 2020 from the Democratic primaries and impeachment to the emergence of the pandemic. It is moderated by Jasmine McNealy.

Social media has corrupted the truth, spawned fake news and contributed to the collapse of polite political norms – right or wrong? A systematic, in-depth study of American news media before and after Trump takes a deeper plunge into the right-wing ecosystem at large, with surprising findings. Yochai Benkler of Harvard University, co-author of Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics explains. This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.

Plus... Charlotte Alter on swing state voters gripped by 'unlogic;' Yochai Benkler on a looming test for American democracy; are Murdoch outlets positioning themselves for a Trump loss? Anne Applebaum, Yochai Benkler, Noah Shachtman, Charlotte Alter and Andrew Sullivan join Brian Stelter. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

Former Chair of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele talks about his decision to support Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Laurie Santos, professor of Psychology at Yale University and host of "The Happiness Lab" podcast, discusses how students are handling this academic year. A new Harvard study led by Yochai Benkler examines how the president harnesses mass media to disseminate and reinforce disinformation about mail-in voter fraud. Benkler joins Hari Sreenivasan to explain his findings. And finally, UCLA professor Andrea Ghez talks about becoming the fourth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize for Physics for her groundbreaking research on black holes.To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

On this episode of our Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Yochai Benkler, a professor at Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. With only weeks until Election Day in the United States, there’s a lot of mis- and disinformation flying around on the subject of mail-in ballots. Discussions about addressing that disinformation often focus on platforms like Facebook or Twitter. But a new study by the Berkman Klein Center suggests that social media isn’t the most important part of mail-in ballot disinformation campaigns—rather, traditional mass media like news outlets and cable news are the main vector by which the Republican Party and the president have spread these ideas. So what’s the research behind this counterintuitive finding? And what are the implications for how we think about disinformation and the media ecosystem?

As a result of an aggressive disinformation campaign, about half of Republicans believe voter fraud is a major problem. Now that Trump has tested positive for COVID-19, what will the impact be on his party's push to question the validity of the election? On this week's Kicker, Yochai Benkler a professor at Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, and Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR, discuss Benkler's study of online media stories and social media posts that referred to the risk of voter fraud, all posted between March 1 and August 31 this year. His team found that Trump is central to the dissemination process, and that, in the media's effort to remain neutral, we adopt and amplify his framing.

In this conversation, Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting talks to Sukumar, Co-Founder of Tiny Magiq, where Sukumar shares his stories about: His friend who inspired him to get into software How, on his first day at a client’s place, he did something totally unconnected - as he thought - to software His first lesson at work - attitude! What one can learn from working on a maintenance project How his first role with a sales responsibility was so stressful, tending to a breakdown Mustering the courage to seek guidance to change the vicious cycle to a virtuous cycle His personal transition to handle uncertainties in his CXO Roles What he learnt from a war veteran on doing pilot projects Taking an integrative approach to knowledge management and process to deliver knowledge just in time How the blogging experiment opened up cross Business Unit exchanges Some techniques he used to foster innovation across a large organization Inspirations from the paper ‘Ronald Coase Penguins’ by ‘Yochai Benkler’ on socio psychological rewards Why his company is called ‘tiny magiq’ Applying tiny changes in his own life - as in push ups His perspective on the future for a career in IT Sukumar has 31 years of experience in the IT services industry. He runs a Digital transformation & Behaviour transformation enabler startup called Tiny Magiq with 4 co-founders since Feb 2015. He left Cognizant in April 2014, after nearly 19 years, where he served as Senior Vice President, Global Chief Information Officer & Global Head of Innovation.  Sukumar in his 8 year stint as a CXO in Cognizant led award-winning transformation programs in IT, Innovation Culture and Delivery Management. Sukumar is an avid blogger/twitterer, a fitness enthusiast and a travel bug. He researches the Indus Valley Civilization in his spare time. Sukumar received lifetime recognition for his work in IT through the 2014 Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders program. Sukumar is rated by Huffington Post as one of the Top 100 Social CIOs in 2014 & 2013. His social media handles: linkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajagopalsukumar/ Twitter: @rsukumar Facebook: https://facebook.com/Sukumar Website:  https://tinymagiq.com

During the 2016 election season, many U.S. citizens were getting their news from organizations known to neglect professional journalistic standards. Harvard professor Yochai Benkler joins us to discuss Network Propaganda — a new book he has co-authored that examines how exposure to low-quality news during that election cycle was particularly prevalent on the political right, resulting in a distorted presidential campaign based on misinformation.

During the 2016 election season, many U.S. citizens were getting their news from organizations known to neglect professional journalistic standards. Harvard professor Yochai Benkler joins us to discuss Network Propaganda — a new book he has co-authored that examines how exposure to low-quality news during that election cycle was particularly prevalent on the political right, resulting in a distorted presidential campaign based on misinformation.

During the 2016 election season, many U.S. citizens were getting their news from organizations known to neglect professional journalistic standards. Harvard professor Yochai Benkler joins us to discuss Network Propaganda — a new book he has co-authored that examines how exposure to low-quality news during that election cycle was particularly prevalent on the political right, resulting in a distorted presidential campaign based on misinformation.

In all the attempts to understand just what happened with the 2016 election, a lot of blame has fallen on the internet and especially on Facebook. The attention, which often focuses on the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Russian interference, is not unwarranted — but it often seems to lose track of the fact that Facebook is just one part of a broader media ecosystem, and not necessarily the most important one. This week, we're joined by Yochai Benkler of the Berkman Klein Center to discuss why Fox News, not Facebook, might deserve the lion's share of scrutiny.

Erik Martin was a guest on Episode 10 of this show, and I'm pretty excited that he's back. In February this year he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled, We need a PBS for the Internet Age.Erik is a graduate student at the Oxford Internet Institute, and was a policy adviser at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He also worked as Sr Education Program Manager at the game engine company Unity, and was listed on Forbes 30 under 30 in 2018 in the games category. When I read his piece in The Post I immediately started bugging him to join us on the show to say more. I have the feeling that when I look back on the episodes of 2019, this one will land among a handful at the top that really pushed my thinking. Whether or not you agree with his proposal, I hope that you walk away with your own ideas about the responsibility that legislators in the US could one day take for improving the inextricably connected role that the internet plays in our lives and our democracy beyond the whack-a-mole of censorship and regulation. Episode Notes:We Need a PBS for the Internet Age, Washington Post, Op Ed, February 25, 2019: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-internet-has-gone-bad-public-media-can-save-it/2019/02/24/024befd0-36b2-11e9-854a-7a14d7fec96a_story.html?utm_term=.05c7d6fd62e4Oxford Computational Propaganda Project: https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/MIT research on false information retweets more than real news: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/the-spread-of-false-and-true-info-online/overview/Newton Minnows 1961 speech, Television and the Public Interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_and_the_Public_Interest Network Propaganda, Book, Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/network-propaganda-yochai-benkler/1129078833?ean=9780190923631#/Shoshana Zuboff, Surveillance Capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalismBerkman Klein - talk on Network Propaganda: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2018-10-04/network-propaganda See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mark Leonard speaks with Andrew Wilson, Kadri Liik and Nicu Popescu about the Kerch Strait ship capture, what this means and how the international community could react to the latest tensions. The podcast was recorded on 26 November 2018. Bookshelf: The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Cuckoos-Egg/Cliff-Stoll/9781416507789 Why doctors hate their computers by Atul Gawande https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/why-doctors-hate-their-computers Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President - What We Don't, Can't, and Do Know by Kathleen Hall Jamieson https://global.oup.com/academic/product/cyberwar-9780190915810?cc=gb&lang=en& Network Propaganda - Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts https://global.oup.com/academic/product/network-propaganda-9780190923631?cc=gb&lang=en& Distant love by Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Distant+Love-p-9780745661803 Picture credit: Vladimir Putin at celebrating the 70th anniversary of D-Day by Kremlin.ru, available via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vladimir_Putin_at_celebrating_the_70th_anniversary_of_D-Day_(2014-06-06;_06).jpeg, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Patt Morrison talks with Yochai Benkler an author and the Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School.

The internet and social media were supposed to radically democratize news and information — yet many observers now worry that they are undermining the preconditions for healthy democracies. Misinformation peddled by conspiracy theorists, unscrupulous clickbaiters, and even intelligence agencies spreads around the globe at the speed of light, while in the United States, citizens increasingly retreat into distinct media ecosystems so divergent as to be mutually unrecognizable. Can liberal democracy function in a world in which voters no longer inhabit the same universe of facts?We’ll take up these questions with renowned scholar Yochai Benkler, coauthor of the important new book-length study Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. We’ll take a close look at the dynamics of how propaganda, misinformation, and “fake news” propagate across modern information networks. Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, and Cato senior fellow Julian Sanchez provide commentary. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Yochai Benkler, Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, first explored the potential of the modern sharing economy in a Yale Law Journal article in 2004, and is credited as one of the first people to articulate the concept. More than a decade later, Benkler spoke about how our reality measures up to his initial conception. In this interview, he outlined the transition of sharing information through social networks to sharing within a market framework. “It takes time to be a decent sharer,” Benkler said. “It takes emotional load. Sometimes it’s just easier to pay, depending on what you’re trying to do.” Benkler prefers the term “on-demand economy” for those companies that incorporate a market framework.

Katherine Maher, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, joins Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler for a conversation about the future of Wikipedia and global crowdsourced knowledge. Find out more about this event here: https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/luncheon/10/Maher

Yochai Benkler, professor at Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, discussed his recent study on conservative media and the 2016 election, which analyzed more than 1.25 million stories published online between April 1, 2015 and Election Day, 2016. This Shorenstein Center event was recorded April 5, 2017, at Harvard Kennedy School. 

Karin Pettersson, Aftonbladet, and Georg Diez, Der Spiegel/60 pages in conversation with philosopher and Harvard professor Yochai Benkler about Internet and the future of democracy. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Palak Shah discusses The Good Work Code, an attempt to bring comprehensive worker's rights to Silicon Valley. And Yochai Benkler asks why the people who create all the content on Facebook - you and me - don't own it. All that and a commentary from Laura on Apple's questionable borrowing practices. Palak Shah is Social Innovations Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. In addition to helping create The Good Work Code, she has worked in state government, for Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, and in the grassroots, from Los Angeles' Bus Riders' Union to Generation Five and Oakland Rising, both in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yochai Benkler is author of The Wealth of Networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. He is Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

This conversation, part of a daylong workshop asking "Is the Internet a Realm of Creativity and Freedom or Corporatization and Control?", responds to and build upon Yochai Benkler’s talk, and considers how the Internet is a truly free space and how it’s controlled and corporatized. The discussion is moderated by Daniel Klinghard, associate professor of political science, and features Yochai Benkler of Harvard Law School and Holy Cross faculty Alexander Duff, Aaron Herold, and Carly Herold of the Department of Political Science, and Jorge Santos of the English Department.

Yochai Benkler, the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, gave a keynote address as part of a daylong workshop, held September 18, 2015, asking, "Is the Internet a Realm of Creativity and Freedom or Corporatization and Control?" In his address, Benkler explores how the set of ideas that have emerged around the commons challenge the individualistic account of late-20th century market society.

We start, of course, with speed traps and the suggestion of a radio talk show host that giving speed trap warnings is a religious obligation. Our major topic, though, is the insanity of the textbook market. Christian takes a typically moderate position and argues that all textbooks should be free. Joe takes a typically strident position and argues that it’s more complicated than that. We discuss our respective projects to change the nature and distribution of law school casebooks. Topics include: textbooks as playlists, how their production is like and unlike the production of wikipedia, the traditional model and how much students pay, the weird market for textbooks, Joe’s collaboration with Lydia Loren to become the Radiohead of textbook publishers, and one publisher’s attempt essentially to lease rather than sell textbooks. We close by noting that it’s hot here now (the slight hiss when Joe speaks is the air conditioning) and Christian’s related parenting woes. This show’s links: Atlanta’s News Radio 106.7 FM and, in particular, The Michael Graham Show Episode 7: Speed Trap and follow-up on speed-trap law on Episode 8: Party All Over the World Christian Turner, This Thing I Made, describing HydraText Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks, from which you can download the book or read it in a browser The Berkman Center’s H2O Project at Harvard University eLangdell, CALI’s casebook project Semaphore Press, Joe’s and Lydia Loren’s casebook company James Grimmelman, Internet Law: Cases and Materials Daniel Nazer, Aspen to Students: Your Property Book is Not Your Property Mike Masnick, Publisher 'DRMs' Physical Legal Textbook About 'Property,' Undermines Property And First Sale Concepts Josh Blackman, Aspen Casebook Connect Textbooks Must Be Returned At End Of Class, Cannot Be Resold Josh Blackman, Aspen Issues Revised “Connected Casebook” – Now You Can Choose To Keep Your Book Ian Chant, Law Profs Revolt after Aspen Casebook Tries to Get Around First Sale Doctrine

Why do people share? In this episode we hear from Yochai Benkler about his research into people who write Wikipedia articles, and we meet Sam Harnett who moonlights giving people rides — and recording their stories. Download audio Any given day, in any given place, someone is giving away something of value. Money, time, expertise.…READ MORE

Are human beings — as consultants, researchers, and the authors of business books have thought for years — fundamentally motivated by self interest? Or is there a deeper cooperative instinct that drives us to work? Those are the questions that fuel Yochai Benkler‘s investigation in The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest. In it Benkler challenges the rather embarrassing idea that people are primarily selfish by citing examples — from collective farming to neuroscience to the world’s richest corporations — demonstrating that people are a lot more cooperative than they get credit for. Benkler spoke with David Weinberger about his new book for this week’s Radio Berkman.

When the Federal Communications Commission announced in April of 2009 that they would be pursuing a National Broadband Plan – picture something as ambitious as the interstate highway initiative but for bytes instead of cars – web surfers with a need for speed began warming up their mouse muscles. It seems like we’ve sat on the side of the road while our friends in Europe and Asia have zoomed past us in the race to faster net speeds at cheaper prices. But how does the US really stack up to the rest of the world? As part of their Broadband Plan the FCC commissioned Yochai Benkler and a team of researchers at the Berkman Center to put together an international review of broadband deployment and policy. The result is an exhaustive 333-page report showing the US roughly in the middle of 30 industrial nations – in terms of speed, penetration, and cost. How did we end up in the middle? And more importantly, how did so many other countries get ahead? Yochai sat down with David Weinberger to talk about how they found these results, and what the US could do to ambitiously pursue a faster web. CC Music this week: Jeremiah Jacobs – Pushing Past BOCrew – SoulCornerBeat Photo courtesy of flickr user paulnich

Harvard professor and business author Yochai Benkler questions the centuries-old practice of managing people through incentive structures

Yochai Benkler of Harvard University talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about net neutrality, access to the internet, and innovation. Benkler argues in favor of net neutrality and government support of broadband access. He is skeptical of the virtues of new technology (such as the iPad) fearing that they will lead to less innovation. The conversation closes with a discussion of commons-based peer production--open source software and Wikipedia.

Yochai Benkler of Harvard University talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about net neutrality, access to the internet, and innovation. Benkler argues in favor of net neutrality and government support of broadband access. He is skeptical of the virtues of new technology (such as the iPad) fearing that they will lead to less innovation. The conversation closes with a discussion of commons-based peer production--open source software and Wikipedia.

Panel discussion during the Oxford Social Media Convention 2009 on the socially egalitarian and politically democratic potential of social media. Have they lived up to the promises? Theorists such as Yochai Benkler have suggested that the accessibility and inherently social nature of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, social networking and wikis mean that we might expect them to enhance our democratic freedoms through the opening of new channels for debate and collaboration. Academic research suggests that such new opportunities have not been equally taken up, and that in many areas, new social media are simply being used by old elites. At the same time, blogs and social media are having significant effect in enhancing accountability and transparency, particularly in repressive regimes like Burma and China. This session will ask whether we should be so quick to dismiss the socially egalitarian and politically democratic potential of social media or whether there might equally be more mundane but significant social impacts which have so far been ignored.

Can Web 2.0 tools (eg blogs, social networking and wikis) enhance our democratic freedoms? Or can we dismiss the socially egalitarian and politically democratic potential of these social media? Have any significant social impacts been ignored so far? Theorists such as Yochai Benkler have suggested that the accessibility and inherently social nature of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, social networking and wikis mean that we might expect them to enhance our democratic freedoms through the opening of new channels for debate and collaboration. Academic research suggests that such new opportunities have not been equally taken up, and that in many areas, new social media are simply being used by old 'elites'. At the same time, blogs and social media are having significant effect in enhancing accountability and transparency, particularly in repressive regimes like Burma and China. This session asks whether we should be so quick to dismiss the socially egalitarian and politically democratic potential of social media or whether there might equally be more mundane but significant social impacts which have so far been ignored. This is part of a series of recordings from the OII's Oxford Social Media Convention, held at the University of Oxford on 18 September 2009.

Can Web 2.0 tools (eg blogs, social networking and wikis) enhance our democratic freedoms? Or can we dismiss the socially egalitarian and politically democratic potential of these social media? Have any significant social impacts been ignored so far? Theorists such as Yochai Benkler have suggested that the accessibility and inherently social nature of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, social networking and wikis mean that we might expect them to enhance our democratic freedoms through the opening of new channels for debate and collaboration. Academic research suggests that such new opportunities have not been equally taken up, and that in many areas, new social media are simply being used by old 'elites'. At the same time, blogs and social media are having significant effect in enhancing accountability and transparency, particularly in repressive regimes like Burma and China. This session asks whether we should be so quick to dismiss the socially egalitarian and politically democratic potential of social media or whether there might equally be more mundane but significant social impacts which have so far been ignored. This is part of a series of recordings from the OII's Oxford Social Media Convention, held at the University of Oxford on 18 September 2009.

Much discussion of our impending digital future is insular and without nuance. Skeptics talk mainly among themselves, while utopians and optimists also keep company mainly within their own tribal cultures. This forum challenges this unhelpful division, staging a conversation between Yochai Benkler and Cass Sunstein, two of our country’s most thoughtful and influential writers on the promise and the perils of the Internet Age.

Digital visionaries such as Yochai Benkler have described the emergence of a new networked culture in which participants with differing intentions and professional credentials co-exist and cooperate in a complex media ecology. Are we witnessing the appearance of a new or revitalized folk culture? Are there older traditions and practices from print culture or oral societies that resemble these emerging digital practices? What sort of amateur or grassroots creativity have been studied or documented by literary scholars, anthropologists, and students of folklore? How were creativity and collaboration understood in earlier cultures? Are there lessons or cautions for digital culture in the near or distant past?

This entry in the MIT Communications Forum series, Will Newspapers Survive?, hosted Yochai Benkler, author of The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, and included our directors, Henry Jenkins and William Uricchio. The next entry in this series, Why Newspapers Matter will be held October 5, 2006 from 5-7 PM at Bartos Theater, and like all of our events is open to the public. Check our website regularly for more upcoming events.

Co-sponsored by: UC Berkeley School of Information, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, boalt.org. With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign to protect the entrenched industrial information economy of the last century threatens the promise of today's emerging networked information environment. In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing - and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained or lost by the decisions we make today.