Why Everyone Was Wrong About Net Neutrality

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler

Today, the Federal Communications Commission, by a vote of three to two, enacted its strongest-ever rules on net neutrality, preserving an open Internet by prohibiting broadband providers from blocking or slowing content that flows across their pipes. It is a substantial achievement for the Obama Administration and the F.C.C. chairman Tom Wheeler, and also for the many groups that fought hard for the outcome. But it also is a moment to reflect back on the process over the last year that led here, and figure out why what so many people thought they knew turned out to be wrong.

Why Everyone Was Wrong About Net Neutrality – The New Yorker.

Net Neutrality day is here: a guide to today’s vote

Net Neutrality day is here: a guide to today’s vote | Gigaom

What is the right way to run the internet? After months of pitched debate over so-called net neutrality, the FCC will finally vote on a proposal that will prevent broadband providers from slowing down or speeding up certain websites.

While there’s little doubt about the outcome of the vote, Thursday’s FCC hearing could still bring some surprises. Here’s an overview of how the process will unfold, key issues to watch, and what will happen next.

Net Neutrality day is here: a guide to today’s vote | Gigaom.

Celebrate Fair Use Week

Fair Use Week is an annual celebration held the last week of February. Fair Use Week 2015 will take place from Monday, February 23, through Friday, February 27. It celebrates the important doctrines of fair use in the United States and fair dealing in Canada and other jurisdictions.

Fair use and fair dealing are essential limitations and exceptions to copyright, allowing the use of copyrighted materials without permission from the copyright holder under certain circumstances. Fair use and fair dealing are flexible doctrines, allowing copyright to adapt to new technologies. These doctrines facilitate balance in copyright law, promoting further progress and accommodating freedom of speech and expression.

While fair use and fair dealing is employed on a daily basis by students, faculty, librarians, journalists, and all users of copyrighted material, Fair Use Week is a time to promote and discuss the opportunities presented, celebrate successful stories and explain the doctrine.

via About | Fair Use Week.

‘The Cloud’ and Other Dangerous Metaphors

'The Cloud' and Other Dangerous Metaphors - The Atlantic

As a concept, data constantly eludes crisp definition…

The collection of personal data is now ubiquitous, and people are starting to pay attention. But data-collection policies have been built primarily on what we technically can do, rather than what we should do.

Underlying the discussion has been a tangle of big, thorny questions: What policies should govern the use of online data collection, use, and manipulation by companies? Do massive online platforms like Google and Facebook, who now hold unprecedented quantities of sensitive behavioral data about people and groups, have the right to research and experiment on their users? And, if so, how and to what extent should they be permitted to do so?

‘The Cloud’ and Other Dangerous Metaphors – The Atlantic.