Keynote Speakers

Both of these presentations were streamed live and recorded.  For the capture livestreams, visit: http://livestream.com/unc-sils. They can also be viewed at https://vimeo.com/uncsils

Lisa Nakamura – “The Digital Afterlives of This Bridge Called My Back: Public Feminism and Open Access” – Wednesday, November 4, 9:00-10:00 AM (14:00-15:00 GMT)

Bio: Lisa Nakamura is the Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor in the Department of American Culture and the Department of Screen Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she also serves as Coordinator of Digital Studies. The author of Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (University of Minnesota Press, 2007) and Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet (Routledge, 2002), Nakamura has written extensively on issues of race, gender, and sexuality in digital media. Drawing on social media, video games, online avatars, and other mediated visual representations, Nakamura’s work investigates how identities are negotiated in the contemporary digital milieu. Nakamura also co-facilitates FemTechNet, an active network of artists, researchers, activists, students, and librarians engaged at the intersections of science, feminism, and technology. Open to any interested feminist, FemTechNet fosters collaborations and projects to advance feminist technological innovation, promote the involvement of women and girls in scientific and digital activities, and encourage the work of feminist scholars.

Abstract: This presentation will describe how the social media platform Tumblr has been deployed by fans as a site of memory for the canonical and until recently out of print woman of color text This Bridge Called My Back. The curation, distribution, and communities of shared feeling that have formed around this text demonstrate how it has come to function as a rallying point for post-digital feminists.

Pamela Samuelson – “Mass Digitization of Cultural Heritage: Can Copyright Obstacles Be Overcome?” – Thursday, November 5, 9:00-10:00 AM (14:00-15:00 GMT)

Bio: Pamela Samuelson is the Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the University of California, Berkeley. She holds a joint appointment in the UC Berkeley School of Information and School of Law. Throughout her career as a legal scholar, Samuelson has been a pioneer in issues of cyberlaw, intellectual property rights, and digital copyright law. Some of her notable publications include “Google Book Search and the Future of Books in Cyberspace,” 94 Minn. L. Rev. 1308 (2010), “Privacy as Intellectual Property?,” 52 Stan. L. Rev. 1125 (2000), and “Benson Revisited: The Case Against Patent Protection for Algorithms and Other Computer Program-Related Inventions,” 39 Emory L. J. 1025 (1990). A fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, a member of the Board of Directors for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Samuelson is an active and influential voice in critical discussions of information policy.

Abstract: Preserving cultural heritage is an important obligation that our society owes to future generations. Digital technologies have opened up new opportunities for engaging in preservation activities. Copyright is sometimes a significant impediment to digital preservation, although to be sure, it is far from the only challenge digital preservationists face. This talk will focus attention on the role that fair use may play in surmounting the copyright challenges, in light of the very recent appellate court decision in Authors Guild v. Google Inc. The Authors Guild v. HathiTrust appellate court decision from the previous year has affirmed the fairness of digitizing for purposes of creating a full-text searchable database, preserving in-copyright materials, and enhancing access to the contents of books for print-disabled persons. The Google decision makes it clear that serving up snippets that do not show enough of the expression in copyrighted materials to supplant market demand is fair use. Although the Authors Guild has announced that it will ask the Supreme Court to review the Google decision, this talk will explain why I think that appeal will not be successful. The greater challenge, however, is how to increase public access to the contents of the cultural artifacts of the 20th century beyond snippets. This talk will consider how much work fair use can do to achieve this objective and will discuss the Copyright Office’s proposal for an extended collective license solution to the problem of attaining more access to the contents of in-copyright materials.