Technology and Public Diplomacy Speaker Series: Jason Schultz

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Cory Doctorow, the Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy, welcomed Jason Schultz for a presentation on lessons learned during his career as an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit geared toward protecting digital freedoms. He currently leads EFF's Patent Busting Project. Prior to joining EFF, Schultz worked at the law firm of Fish & Richardson P.C., where he spent most of his time invalidating software patents and defending open source developers in law suits. He has also served as a law clerk to the Honorable D. Lowell Jensen and as a legal intern to the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte, both in the Northern District of California federal court system.

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

7:00 pm

Annenberg, Room 207


Event Report

Schultz focused his talk on areas where internet freedoms and the law perpetually butt heads- such as privacy, speech, copyright infringement and patents. He discussed the importance of vigilantly defending those freedoms, as well as the consequences for individuals if such rights aren't protected. He delved into fascinating Internet litigation battles from the past and present. He also made insightful points about future cases. Could Wikipedia be sued for inaccurate or libelous information? Could patent owners of common audio and video streaming technology start charging users? What would an Internet like that look like? Schultz urged that the spirit of innovation and creativity on the internet should be protected. When they are, both experiments and 'net staples like Google, MySpace.com and YouTube.com flourish, stimulating other breakthroughs.

Schultz's presentation was the first of a multi-part Technology and Public Diplomacy colloquium at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

To find out more about Jason Schultz's current work with the EFF, visit http://www.eff.org.

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