Launching the Centre for Internet Law and Policy at Strathclyde

Pangloss is off to London tomorrow to chair the SCL Policy Forum: run don't walk if you still want to get a ticket as I believe there are a few still available! Which will be followed by an (I hope) well earned pre-term week away to foreign climes..

But before I disappear I want to start plugging my NEXT two big events, both of which are designed around launching the new Centre for Internet Law and Policy at Strathclyde, of which I am the Director. Please check out our new website, revamped LLM offerings and exciting news and events pages as well as our Twitter feed at @strathllmit! Small acorns, big oaks perhaps (well it makes a change from apples!) but we do have big plans. Meanwhile, having had a marvellous turn out for our Mark Stephens event, we hope you'll now sign up with equal enthusiasm for these two:

Scottish Launch of Centre for Internet Law and Policy

Scottish Phonehacking Symposium

to be reschedued in 2012 due to industrial action (sigh..)

A cracking panel of Mike Nellis, Lilian Edwards, Mark Poustie (all Strathclyde Law School, representing Internet law and sociology), Rachael Craufurd-Smith (Edinburgh Law School EC media law expert ), David Goldberg (media law consultant and free speech scholar) , Jack Irvine of Mediahouse, former editor of the Scottish Sun and Aamer Anwar, leading Scottish solicitor with extensive experience of the phonehacking scandals, especially most recently in relation to one of his better known clients, Tommy Sheridan.

These parrticipants will informally discuss recent events surrounding phone hacking, privacy, the Murdoch empire, and the possible end of newspapers as we know it, from legal, sociological, journalistic, media studies, Scottish and no doubt other perspectives! Watch our talkative panellists fight the clock as they'll only get 10 minutes each!

No fee but registration required: please contact Linda Nicolson to be put on list and for venue details not yet finalised.

University Launch of Centre for Internet Law and Policy

Tuesday, November 15th 6:00pm , Strathclyde University

Lecture by Alan Winfield, Roboticist, EPSRC Senior Media Fellow and Director of the Science Communication Unit, UWE Bristol and Lilian Edwards, Professor of E-Governance:

"Regulating Robots: Re-Writing Asimov's Three Laws in the Real World?

As robots emerge from the pages of science fiction into a world where they are already commonplace in industry and will soon be equally so on the battlefield and in domestic and public environments like homes, hospitals, schools and shops; where driverless cars already roam Nevada albeit under human escort and Japanese elderly are comforted by robot seals, hard legal questions are emerging which need answers soon or better still, now. Who is responsible for a robot? What happens to our privacy when robots share our homes? Do we need Asimov's Three Laws in real life?

Tea and coffee from 5.30pm, drinks reception after.

No fee but registration required: please contact Linda Nicolson to be put on list and for full venue details not yet finalised.

And yes, real blogging will resume now the summer is over :-)

A few more dates for diaries

The Strathclyde LLM in Internet law and Policy is happy to present a public lecture by Daithi MacSithigh of the University of East Anglia on March 25th 2011 Room 7.42, 7th floor Graham Hills Building, 40 George Street, Glasgow, commencing at 5.00pm. The event is free but please email Linda at linda.nicolson@strath.ac.uk to let us know if you are planning to attend.

The title is ""The medium is still the message:Angry Birds,the Met Opera & broadband bills"

Pangloss is really looking forward to that :)

Also for central-belt Scots - put April 14th 2011 evening in your diary, when Strathclyde Law School and the Franco-Scots Alliance will be co-hosting an event on the current state of anti filesharing legislation in the UK and France - myself and Nicolas Jondet (currently teaching IP law at Strathclyde, and local expert on HADOPI) representing these jurisdictions respectively. Venue TBD but Old College in Edinburgh likely. Given the current events around the Digital Economy Act - judicial review, Hargreaves Review - as well as in France this could be lively :)

DEB: write to MPs campaign launch

My views on the DEB are I think relatively plain:-)

38 Degrees are trying to get 10,000 people to write to their MPs in next few days to make a real impact that might lead to a debate in the Commons over the Digital Economy Bill. I feel it is an insult to democracy as well as bad for the digital economy (sic) for this Bill to pass without effective further Commons .scrutiny. See my summary here: (now confirmed by Hansard).

I imagine many people who read this blog have already written to their MPs (though I also know some readers support the Bill, which is their opinion) - but if you oppose it and haven't, please do: a form letter can be found in various places, notably here but please do tweak it to your own ends as multiple identical letters are usually discounted by MPs.

Please write via the 38 Degrees page which can count the letters sent - it's here.

What you can also do is repost this on your own blogs, social networks etc . If you follow @OpenRightsGroup (whose Advisory Council I sit on) on Twitter you will get tweets about this which are easily re-tweetable.) Please think about doing this. The Guardian comments on the campaign here. Some MPs have already said they are going to insist on having a say. About 1-3,000 people have already written.

I have just heard that the Government has already rushed through the First Reading in the Commons and the Second Reading is being scheduled. After Second Reading it is likely Committee will be skipped, as constitutionally the Bill can then be dumped in wash-up and put through in an hour. This is how sausages are made, not laws. Which reminds me..

Upcoming speaking venues

COUNTER Conference (EC FP7 funded event) Manchester, March 23rd-24th, http://www.counter2010.org/; I am on a panel Wed 24th at 1.30 which includes Richard Miollett of the BPI and looks rather interesting .

I will be speaking at Cafe Scientifique in Sheffield at the Showroom, on April 19th (not the usual date due to Easter) on "Law and sausages: how not to legislate for the Digital Economy." Free. 7-9pm. Contact C.Kuppuswamy@sheffield.ac.uk for details.

BILETA 2010, March 29th -30th, Vienna: speaking with Andreas Ruhmkorf of Sheffield University on web rating sites for teachers, doctors etc, and their legal issues in Europe. Fab looking programme.

Oxford Internet Institute, 12th-13th April, privacy event, no details yet.


IISS Cyber Warfare Workshop, London, 20 April 2010: speaking on cyber crime and cyberwar, legal aspects.

MY INAUGURAL LECTURE, Sheffield, May, 21st : "Anti-Social Networking" - all welcome , free, with drinks reception after; 5pm, St George's Church, . Please email if you're coming and want to let me know in advance!

A couple more events to add shortly in Edinburgh, London and Estonia - I must be mad..

Oh and

GIKII V: the Voyage Home - Edinburgh, 28th-29th June. Contact me or a.guadamuz@ed.ac.uk.