I returned last night from the Copyright Future: Copyright Freedom conference hosted in Canberra on 27-28 May 2009 [program available here]. I was hoping to live blog the conference (seeing as it was so interesting!), but unfortunately due to the historic nature of the venue (Old Parliament House) there were very few wired internet connections and no wireless connectivity. Peter Black (PeterBlackQUT) and Elliott Bledsoe (elliottbledsoe), who had their own internet connections (courtesy of some “dongles”), were tweeting during the day. You can follow their tweets at #copyrightfuture09.
I did take some notes during the day, but I have decided not to blog extensively on the individual presentations. Mainly because I feel that the fairly mediocre notes that I took do not do the presentations justice. There are some brief notes here, but nothing substantial.
QUT (which hosted the conference, convened by Professor Brian Fitzgerald), will be making the audio and video recordings of each presentation, and the relevant slide sets, available online under CC licences in the very near future (subject to presenter permission). I will post here when they are uploaded, so watch this space. The recordings are probably the best way to access the presentations for any who are interested. And I would highly recommend it, because most were brilliant.
Another reason I did not have much time to take detailed notes (excuses, excuses), was that (along with my colleague, Nic Suzor) I spent a great deal of my time running around with a low-quality mp3 recorder taking short (3-5 minute) interviews with some of the conference delegates. The interview questions centred around how each interviewee first became involved with or interested in copyright law; what they see as some of the main challenges and issues in copyright law; and what they see for the future of copyright. The interviews will also be made available online as podcasts, subject to interviewee permission. Interviewees included (among others):
- The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG;
- Professor Lawrence Lessig and Senator Kate Lundy;
- Professor Julie Cohen;
- Dr Terry Cutler;
- Dr Nicholas Gruen;
- Professor Graham Greenleaf;
- Professor Susy Frankel;
- Dr Prodromos Tsiavos and
- Dr Matthew Rimmer.
Again, watch this space for notification of when the podcasts are available.