Radio Berkman

05/19/2016

The Chilling Effect

Jon Penney explains how surveillance changes our behavior online.

"With each new regulation, with each new law, you have the subtle conforming effects...so you're less willing to access controversial or sensitive content."

The effects of surveillance on human behavior have long been discussed and documented in the real world. And it turns out it even happens online.

05/12/2016

How George Lucas Used Copyright to Build an Empire

Use the ̶F̶o̶r̶c̶e̶, ̶L̶u̶k̶e̶. copyright, George.

"What funds that remarkable company is their ways of using copyright," says Peter S. Menell, devoted science fiction fan and a professor at the UC Berkeley.

03/11/2016

The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens

If you'e heard the new episode and haven't read Elspeth Reeve's article, check it out! There's so much we couldn't fit.

And if you still haven't heard the new episode: https://soundcloud.com/radioberkman/the-rise-and-tumble-of-the-tumblr-teen

How Tumblr's most popular teen comedy geniuses struck it rich—then lost it all.

03/10/2016

The Rise and Tumble of the Tumblr Teen

You'll never guess what really happened to pizza. 🍕

In the new episode we talk to New Republic writer Elspeth Reeve about "The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens."

In her article "The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens," Elspeth Reeve tells the stories of some of Tumblr's most popular bloggers -kids who started their blogs in high school, made a ton of money and then disappeared.

02/26/2016

What Beyoncé and Justin Bieber Taught Me About Fair Use

What we're reading for :

"Although fair use is meant to be a sturdy and powerful carve out to exclusive rights, both legal and nonlegal systems don’t always treat it as such," writes Emily Hong. "Particularly with remixed work, content is often presumed guilty until proven innocent, a bias that can result in self-censorship or repeat takedowns and suppression of legal content."

(via Future Tense from Slate.com, New America and Arizona State University)

I made a discovery just before the holidays. If you start Beyoncé’s “Grown Woman” at 0:23 seconds in and simultaneously press play on the music video f ...

02/26/2016

Radio Free Culture #38: Wishing You A Happy Fair Use Week with Ellen Duranceau from Feb 23, 2015

If our 6-minute podcast wasn't enough, check out this interview from WFMU's Radio Free Culture with MIT Libraries' Ellen Duranceau. She even has acronym!

[Cheyenne talks to Ellen Duranceau, MIT Librarian, about the gray area of what is and isn't fair use under the US Copyright statute.] http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/59541

02/26/2016

Can you copyright a joke?

You spend all this time putting together the perfect 140 character tweet, and then someone else makes it their own.

With 316 million users posting 500 million tweets a day, someone is bound to write an unoriginal tweet now and then. But there are some Twitter users whose entire existence relies completely on plagi

02/26/2016

19 Reasons to be Thankful for “Fair Use”

Really though- what would we do without "Spaceballs" and Comic-con?!

Most people don’t realize copyright law impacts what we do every day, including how we watch and listen to entertainment. The principle of “fair use” is part of our nation’s copyright law that allo...

02/25/2016

Radio Berkman's cover photo

02/25/2016

How Fair Use Works, in Six Minutes or Less

To celebrate , we try to explain fair use and copyright in 6 minutes or less.

Bonus: We do it all with music from Roy Orbison and 2 Live Crew.

An artist, musician, or writer can’t just take another person's creation and claim it as their own. Federal law outlines how creators can and can’t borrow from each other. These rules are collectively

06/08/2015

The Threats and Tradeoffs of Big Data

How can we keep mountains of our personal data out of the wrong hands without compromising all the great benefits we get everyday?

If you were spooked by any of the big data breaches of the last few years, you’ll want to listen to this week's podcast with Bruce Schneier and Josephine Wolff.

A lot of personal information about you is completely invisible, intangible, and racing around cyberspace on a mission to pay your bills and geolocate your Facebook status. And, of course, this is use

06/01/2015

RB 217: Don't Hate the Player, Change the Game

If a video game can eliminate harassment and hate speech, maybe there's hope for the rest of the web.

This week on the podcast we talk to Jeffrey "Lyte" Lin who is engineering the hate out of League of Legends.

Few sectors of the networked environment get a worse reputation for hate speech than online gaming. Competitive games with chat functions have always involved some level of trash talking. Slurs, shami

03/25/2015

RB216: The Internet — A Yearbook

New episode!! In Radio Berkman 216 we tackle the web as we know it in 2014-2015. Hate speech online, freedom of speech online, censorship and surveillance online, and, of course, whether our smart machines are out to destroy us.

In Radio Berkman 216 we tackle the web as we know it in 2014-2015. Hate speech online, freedom of speech online, censorship and surveillance online, and, of course, whether our smart machines are out

05/02/2014

RB213: The Public Spectrum

Radio Berkman is back!

Thousands of wireless devices take advantage of a public spectrum of frequency without paying a license fee. Why is the FCC considering auctioning off the public spectrum to the highest bidder?

Most of the spectrum of frequency that exists in the US is occupied or owned by large wireless corporations, cable companies, by the government. Bu...

08/07/2013

You should be listening to all these podcasts

We made it onto The Verge's list of Top 9 best tech podcasts! Thanks to everyone who has been listening!

Two weeks ago Apple announced that podcast subscriptions in the iTunes Store had hit the one billion mark, and to celebrate the occasion Apple assembled a greatest hits list of sorts. And while...

03/19/2013

RB210: The New Knowledge Worker

Hey Facebookers: A recent study shows younger knowledge workers are better with doing research online and using social networks than offline. We find out why on the podcast!

A recent study shows younger knowledge workers aren't too good with offline research.

11/09/2012

RB209: Crisis Spotting (Drone Humanitarianism II)

How can civilians use satellites to prevent a war? Our producer spent a day with Harvard's Signal Program to find out.

What if you could witness a crime taking place from space, and even step in to prevent it?

11/02/2012

RB208: The NetRoots

Happy Election everyone!

How have political advocacy orgs used the web to fundamentally change how people organize and engage? Why are conservatives less funny than liberals? All that and more on today's episode!

On this 2012 election-themed episode of Radio Berkman David Karpf discusses the dozens of Netroots political organizations, both progressive and conservative, that have sprouted up with the mass adoption of the internet.

10/04/2012

RB207: Hacking Censorship

We're excited to share our Drone Humanitarianism series.

The Internet exists and persists on the border between helpful and harmful, between freedom and totalitarianism, access to knowledge and censorship.

This group of hackers harnesses technology to tip the balance towards freedom.

08/17/2012

RB 206: Unlocking Research

The United Kingdom just adopted Open Access for scholarly research!

What else is new in the world of Open Access?

Peter Suber author of a new guide to distilling Open Access talks with David Weinberger about taking research from behind the paywall.

08/14/2012

Tech Politics Timeline | TechPresident

Terrific timeline of Technology and Politics with research by our own Radio Berkman correspondent Becky Kazansky!

Technology is changing politics, government and civic life. This timeline shows the accelerating pace of change in the United States, in the international arena, and online. Here are the seminal moments, inventions, and first uses that mark the early emergence and then growing importance of the Inte...

07/09/2012

RB205: Remembering Elinor Ostrom

Nobel Laureate and Economist Elinor Ostrom passed away last month at the age of 78. Her work paved the way for researchers studying internet communities to explore how norms are established and cooperation is achieved.

On today's show Berkman researchers and affiliates discuss how Ostrom's work impacted their lives.

06/26/2012

Blank on Blank

Find of the Day - "Blank on Blank." Dusts of old unused interviews with famous folks and edits them down into amazing stories! From our buddies at PRX Public Radio Exchange

Famous names, lost interviews. Animated storytelling. From quotedstudios.org

06/14/2012

RB204: The Art and Science of Working Together

If you've ever suffered the inconvenience of a dead cell phone battery and only incompatible chargers within reach, you've experienced one of the minor frustrations of a non-interoperable system.

Now imagine that frustration scaled out to huge markets and society-wide systems like energy grids, air traffic control, and the internet.

This week on the podcast, Interoperability, and why it matters.

06/04/2012

RB203: From Digital Uprising to Digital Society

How has digital technology played a role in laying the foundation for a stable Tunisia?

Radio Berkman spoke to Zack Brisson and Kate Krontiris of Reboot, the authors of the recently completed TUNISIA: FROM REVOLUTIONS TO INSTITUTIONS.

06/01/2012

http://soundcloud.com/radioberkman/rb203-from-digital-uprising-to

It's been 18 months since the spark of revolution was first lit in Tunisia, way back in December of 2010.

How has digital technology played a role in laying the foundation for a stable Tunisia? Today's guests were tasked with finding an answer to that question. And it turns out to be a very complex and interesting one...

06/01/2012

Modem dialup

Hey friends! Asking for another friend: Does anyone know this sound? What do each of the little doodads in this sound actually mean/do? Can anyone translate?

Reaching out and touching...something...else...

05/21/2012

RB 202: Memeology

At ROFLCon 3 in Cambridge earlier this month, fans gathered to meet and celebrate lovable nuggets of internet culture like LOLCATS, Antoine Dodson, and the Double Rainbow guy.

We sent producer Frances Harlow to this Woodstock of the Web to ask "What are memes, and why do they matter?"

05/08/2012

The 42 Streams (Rethinking Music X)

The Future of Music Coalition has identified no less than 42 distinct revenue streams ranging from karaoke licensing to merchandise sales.

Chris Bavitz talks with Future of Music Coalition's Kristin Thomson about how artists are making a living today.

04/25/2012

RB 200: The Library Of The Future

Library expert Matthew Battles asks David Weinberger, "When the smartest person in the room is the room, how do we design the room?"

04/19/2012

RB 199: Be Great. Go Viral. (Rethinking Music IX)

The latest episode in our Rethinking Music series considers the role of the record label in the 21st century...

Dave Herlihy currently teaches music industry classes at Northeastern University and operates his own practice specializing in entertainment law, i...

04/06/2012

RB 197: University 2.0

Juan Carlos de Martin, readily admits that he is only the latest in a long line of thinkers to portend the end of the university as we know it. He almost gleefully cites Thomas Edison as one of his most notable predecessors.

But Juan Carlos may be the first to be right.

Juan Carlos de Martin is only the latest in a long line of thinkers to portend the end of the university as we know it. He almost gleefully cites Thomas Edison as one of his most notable predecessors. But Juan Carlos may be the first to be right.

04/02/2012

RB 196: The Rally Cry of SOPA

How the grassroots campaign to bring down SOPA/PIPA was built, and what it says about organizing on the internet. Thanks to Melissa Galvez for this week's episode!

How the grassroots campaign to bring down SOPA/PIPA was built, and what it says about organizing on the internet.

03/23/2012

RB 195: Can 100 Million Viewers Save a Child?

has certainly been an effective awareness campaign. But has it brought more attention to the sensitivities around intervention in Africa — and the questionable tactics of a charismatic American youth group — than the actual intended target?

The video, and accompanying campaign and meme, has done a lot to raise awareness. Of WHAT exactly, it’s hard to tell. The intended ...

03/13/2012

RB 194: The Wiki 1%

Only 1% of educational wikis succeed in creating the kind of multimedia, collaborative learning environment we have come to associate with open educational resources like PBWikis and Wikispaces.

Radio Berkman wanted to know: Who is making those successful wikis and how?

Producer Frances Harlow spent a day at Thayer Academy in Braintree, MA to see how this technology is being used.

This week at Radio Berkman we tried something new. During our recent interview with Berkman Fellow Justin Reich about his report The State of Wi...