Technology and the Public Interest
Books, essays, and commentary from John Palfrey
Essays
Notes from AI Action Summit in Delhi, India, February 2026
Reflections on AI, governance, and the public interest from the AI Action Summit in Delhi.
Read essayConcord Free Public Library 150th Anniversary Celebration
Remarks on libraries, civic institutions, and the enduring importance of public knowledge.
Read essayInvesting in the Arts—in Chicago and Beyond
Thoughts on philanthropy, culture, and why investing in the arts matters for public life.
Read essayCommentary from John Palfrey
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Eric von Hippel in Internet, Law and Politics
Prof. Eric von Hippel has written one of my favorite books: Democratizing Innovation. Prof. von Hippel teaches at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and runs the Innovation Lab there. Our class of Harvard Law School students focused on Internet, Law and Politics have created a wiki page of questions for Prof. von Hippel in advance…
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Wendy Seltzer's NFL Experience: Just Half-Time, or Game Over?
Prof. Wendy Seltzer, one of the original Berkman team and still a fellow, is our honored guest at lunch today. She’s telling the story of her back-and-forth with the NFL over the 30-second clip she posted to YouTube, as chronicled in the Wall Street Journal’s law blog, her own blog, and elsewhere. Wendy’s claim is…
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Cary Sherman, Lewis Hyde in Chat about RIAA's AntiPiracy Campaign
Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, participated in a web chat about the RIAA’s new Anti-Piracy Campaign on US university campuses — sending pre-litigation notices to digital natives accused of illegal activity on peer-to-peer networks, which the universities are asked to pass along to the students. The Berkman Center’s Lewis Hyde…
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Apache, Sun Tangle over Licenses
The Apache Foundation is accusing Sun of holding out on a license related to a Java test kit. In an open letter, Geir Magnusson Jr of the Apache Foundation says to Jonathan Schwartz, the Sun CEO: “Since August 2006, the ASF has been attempting to secure an acceptable license from Sun for the test kit…
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Book Party for John Clippinger's A Crowd of One
This year, the Berkman faculty and fellows will publish four books on topics related to our field. Join us for the celebration of the first of the four to come out, John Clippinger’s “A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity,” published by PublicAffairs Books. The celebration will take place on Thursday, April 19,…
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iTunes and EMI Breaking the DRM Barrier
Good news from Steve Jobs, Eric Nicoli, and company: EMI’s music now to be available without Digital Rights Management. A great move for consumers, innovation, interoperability and, one hopes, creative re-use of digital works. (Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing has the definitive post and list of links. Cory suggests that we help out with a…
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The First OpenNet Initiative Conference: Registration Opens
The OpenNet Initiative is holding its first-ever conference on May 18 in Oxford, England, at the Oxford Internet Institute. The conference is free and open to the public, but you must register and the event is capped at 100 participants. You can register on this wiki. We will be sharing the initial results of our…
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Wendy Seltzer Puts the NFL on Notice
Berkman fellow (and Brooklyn law prof) Wendy Seltzer is challenging the NFL in an educational video she’s posted to YouTube. The NFL has now twice filed cease-and-desist letters to get the video taken down, and twice YouTube has complied. The content of the video makes the critical and educational nature of Wendy’s posting, plus her…
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On Point on Viacom-YouTube
Tom Ashbrook of NPR/WBUR’s On Point took up the YouTube-Viacom dispute today. You can tune in from here. The group didn’t linger long on the legal issues involved, but covered a lot of ground related to cultural and business implications of the dispute.
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Professor Mary Wong on Intellectual Property Rights and Rhetoric, with Nesson as Interlocutor
Professor Mary Wong of Franklin Pierce Law Center is here today at the Berkman Center. Mary’s talk is a series of provocations about language. She’s taking on the trope of the individual author. She is of the “dualist school,” that there’s a minor, but existing solution to do more with natural rights-type reasoning than the…
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John Mayer of CALI at Berkman
The executive director of The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI), John Mayer, is a totally wonderful guy. He’s funny and smart and cares about cool technologies and access to justice — all good things. That’s especially good news for us, since he’s giving the Berkman Center luncheon series talk today. If you’re familiar with…
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Brad Smith's Public Lecture at HLS
The recording of Brad Smith, VP and general counsel of Microsoft, at Harvard Law School is posted here. His topic was the intersection of innovation, interoperability, and intellectual property.