[And a response at the end from our very own Lizard. --DBM]
********
Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 13:24:43 -0400
To: declan_at_well.com
From: Jeff Chester <jeff_at_cme.org>
Subject: another do-gooder event
You may want to let your list know about. Best and thanks
The Future of Noncommercial Broadband Communications at Risk
Preserving the Internet's Openness, Freedom, and Diversity
Speakers include Rep. Ed Markey, FTC Commissioner Mozelle
Thompson, Dave Farber, Lawrence Lessig, other experts
Dear Colleague:
The Center for Digital Democracy and the Center for Media Education
cordially invites you to participate in a conference on the future of the
Internet in the broadband era on Wednesday, 9 May 2001, at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC).
The Net is at an important crossroads, and we may soon lose meaningful
access to this new medium. Such a development will negatively impact our
civil liberties, limit diversity of information and ownership, harm our
ability to inform and advocate online, and restrict competition. The public
interest broadband conference will describe how the media industry giants
are restructuring the digital media system, fashioning a system that
extends their control over the media beyond television to the
Internet. Instead of an open network, media conglomerates are spending
billions to create what they call "walled gardens," but which are really
new forms of electronic enclosures designed to ensure that they will
continue to dominate the media system.
Unless they act soon, nonprofit organizations will find it difficult to
operate in an online environment that favors big business over small,
e-commerce over e-democracy, and public relations over public service.
That's why it's important to begin exploring new means of collective action
in the online world, new ways of preserving space for noncommercial,
public-interest programming, and for directing traffic to the sources of
information and interactivity that will prove vital to our society in the
twenty-first century.
Additional speakers will include: Dr. Patricia Aufderheide, American
University, Timothy Denton, attorney, Canadian Association of Internet
Providers, Stewart Harris, Public Webworks, Stephen Heins, Northnet, and
Barry Steinheart, ACLU.
Please join us in discussing these important issues, and in exploring
further collaboration in the broadband era:
9 May 2001
9:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington D.C. 20036-2103
RSVP: 202-232-2872
Agoldman_at_cme.org
Seating is limited.
Lunch will be provided
The conference is made possible through the generous support of the Center
for the Public Domain, the Albert A. List Foundation, and the J. Roderick
MacArthur Foundation.
*********
Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 10:41:59 -0700
From: lizard <lizard_at_mrlizard.com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan_at_well.com>
>The Future of Noncommercial Broadband Communications at Risk
>
>Preserving the Internet's Openness, Freedom, and Diversity
>
> Speakers include Rep. Ed Markey, FTC Commissioner Mozelle
> Thompson, Dave Farber, Lawrence Lessig, other experts
>
>Dear Colleague:
>
>The Center for Digital Democracy and the Center for Media Education
>cordially invites you to participate in a conference on the future of the
>Internet in the broadband era on Wednesday, 9 May 2001, at the Carnegie
>Endowment for International Peace (1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington
DC).
<deletia>
Since cyberspace is infinite -- add another hard disk, and you 'create
space', whence cometh the need to 'preserve space'?
Rather, it seems, the folks behind this want to preserve their OWN
'walled gardens' -- the internet equivalents of PBS and NPR, which exist
to serve the elite but which are funded by the masses. I assure you, the
'public spaces' they desire to build will not contain TRULY
non-mainstream content. They will not host the Nuremberg Files, NAMBLA,
Stormfront, Bonsaikittens, or the like. They will host the mainstream
non-mainstream, the sort of stuff acceptable to academics, rich
liberals, and corporate donors.
I challenge any of those speaking at this conference to say, directly,
"We wish to use public tax dollars to guarantee that Nazis and NAMBLA
will always have web space." Do any of them dare do this? I doubt it.
cc'ed to Mr/Ms Goldman.
*********
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Received on May 07 2001
Intro
