Ninth Annual ICPL Seminar

Ninth Annual ICPL Seminar attendees
(view enlarged photo)

Presentations

Tuesday, July 6

• Intro to Law (McDonald)
  This session will cover the laws that apply in cyberspace, how they apply, to whom they apply, and whether your role is judge, jury, and executioner -- or defendant; whether there even is such a thing as "cyberspace law"; what courts have jurisdiction over cyberspace and over you; what you should do about that complaint/subpoena/lawsuit/adverse judgment that you just received from Krygyzstan; and how to work with your university counsel to figure it all out.
• A Framework for Campus IT Policy (Mitrano)
• Policy Panel: Network Authentication (Vernon; Bruhn; Worona; Schuster)
  More and more campuses are requiring network users to sign in before doing anything else, including browsing the Web. Motivations for these policies include the threat of terrorism, the need to manage and account for resource utilization, concerns about file-sharing and other inappropriate network activity, and a variety of others. Are such policies justified? Effective? Legal? What options are available for balancing security and privacy? This panel will consider these questions and more.
• Dinner Keynote: "Scholars and Scoundrels in the Digital Age" (Nisbet)
  Congress gave new protections and powers to copyright holders in passing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998. At the same time, Congress held off on other changes that might be needed for information users to maintain the traditional balance of power promised by the U.S. Constitution. Six years later, arguments abound in business, government and academic circles about whether changes in technology and aggressive use of the DMCA by copyright owners require yet another reworking of the legal copyright scheme. Others ask whether licensing of information and technological locks make copyright law irrelevant. While libraries and universities try to solve practical, day-to-day problems of providing access to and preserving electronic information, they face the threat of legislation that would fortify the monopolistic power of scholarly publishers. Our institutions of learning unleash the potential of the Internet to deliver knowledge in new and wonderful ways, even as copyright holders file unprecedented lawsuits against their customers and urge Congress to mandate technological locks. Libraries and universities are fighting for a fair balancing of societal and economic interests. Will they win?

Wednesday, July 7

• Issues and Options: Privacy (McDonald & Hamilton)
  The institution may own the computers and the networks, but who owns the information on them and who can look at it? This session will examine the ways in which the technology itself affects our privacy (and our thinking about it); the numerous, seemingly incomprehensible, and often conflicting laws that govern on-line privacy, including the Fourth Amendment, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and state and federal open records law; and an approach for developing workable privacy policies that cut through technical and legal uncertainties.
• Issues and Options: "Piracy" (Hamilton & McDonald)
  Peer-to-peer file sharing is still a hot topic, with ongoing lawsuits from the RIAA, new for-fee music services, and adoption by several prominent campuses of automated content-based filtering programs such as Audible Magic. This session explores the legal issues and policy options surrounding this vexing subject.
• The USA/PATRIOT Act: Pros and Cons (Eckenwiler; Hirtle; Nixon)
  We are approaching three years since the USA/PATRIOT Act was signed. Our panelists have studied and worked with its provisions and implementation over that time and will give their views on its past and future impact on campuses, as well as advice for appropriate campus policy.
• Internet Governance: Can the U.N. Do It? (Post)
  The U.N. wants to run the Internet. Seriously. Can they do it? Do we want them to do it? We'll discuss issues raised by the "World Summit on the Information Society", held last December in Geneva.

Thursday, July 8

• SPAM Panel: Legal Background and Campus Insights (Petersen; Ingerman; St Sauver)
  SPAM remains a major problem throughout the Internet and on our campuses. Bret Ingerman and Joe St Sauver will describe how their campuses are dealing with SPAM, including the options considered, what does and doesn't work, and the lessons they've learned. Rodney Petersen will provide the legal background on current anti-spam legislation and review policy choices.
• Role Play (Worona)
  We'll dramatize a technology policy story from current headlines, with audience members serving as (unrehearsed) protagonists. One of the most popular features of the Annual Seminar, the role play is both entertaining and enlightening.
• Copyright 1 & 2 (Harper & Petersen)
  Institutional copyright policies continue to command the attention of technology staff and other campus administrators. These sessions start with the basics of copyright law and move on to cover a range of issues from ownership of copyrighted works to uses of works created by others. Throughout the sessions, the focus will be on exploring campus policy options in the context of the existing legal framework, and will include extended time for discussion.

Friday, July 9

• Federal Legislation (Mitrano; Schuster; Petersen)
• What to Watch (Mitrano & Worona)