‘Hunting the Rogues and Breaking the Internet: a new front in the online copyright enforcement battle’

Associate Professor Kimberlee Weatherall (Sydney)

2-3.30pm, Friday 30 March, 2012
Rogers Room, Woolley Building (A20), University of Sydney — see map: http://db.auth.usyd.edu.au/directories/map/building.stm?location=12E

Abstract:

The Internet Blackout in January 2012 saw thousands of websites ‘go dark’ to protest proposed US laws designed to implement a ‘multisystem denial of service attack’ against alleged IP-infringing websites by making them both unfindable, and by cutting off any financial support. Within days, the laws – known as SOPA and PIPA – were effectively dead. But when and how did such laws even reach the stage of serious discussion?  This paper will look at what’s changed, and how and why regulating internet intermediaries and making them the internet ‘police’ has gradually become more acceptable to governments.

About the presenter:

Kimberlee Weatherall is an Associate Professor at the Sydney Law School (http://sydney.edu.au/law/about/staff/KimberleeWeatherall/). Prior to joining the School in 2012, Kimberlee held positions at the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne and the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia. Kimberlee teaches and researches in intellectual property law, with a particular interest in digital copyright, the relationship between international trade and intellectual property, and the systems for administration and enforcement of intellectual  property rights. She has been a member of the Law Council of Australia IP Subcommittee since 2006 and sits on the board of the Australian Digital Alliance and the Arts Law Centre of Australia.

Media @ Sydney is presented by the Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/media_communications/
For further information, contact Lukasz Swiatek (lukasz.swiatek@sydney.edu.au) or Gerard Goggin (gerard.goggin@sydney.edu.au).