After graduating from Seattle University with a JD Brian Rowe relocated out east to Washington DC to spend the summer fighting to ensure that IP law is benefiting the public through the free flow of information as a Google Public Policy Fellow @ Public Knowledge.
Brian is an IP junkie that reads Boing Boing, /. and XKCD for breakfast before breaking into an light afternoon snack of recent federal appeals court case and amici briefs. Brian’s other projects include a legal internship at Creative Commons last summer, four years of work with the Washington State Access to Justice Technology Committee, and helping write Students for Free Culture’s bylaws.
Before law school, Brian was a techie and web designer with a BS in Informatics and BA Political Science from University of Washington. Before academic pursuits called he even managed a Wizards of the Coast game store during the Pokemon craze, and to this day still plays too many games.
His mission at PK is still to be determined but projects may include; copyright reform, net neutrality, broadband, cellphone jaming, free culture outreach and anything else that helps ensure that IP is working in the interest of the people.
More of Brian’s work can be found by following him on Twitter or identi.ca under the name: Sarterus or at the Freedom for IP a Seattle based IP volunteer org he helps run.
Hmmm…. A person whose
Hmmm…. A person whose salary is being paid by Google will be working full time at Public Knowledge. Gee…. I am sure that we will see completely unbiased output from this person, with no slant whatsoever toward his generous corporate benefactor (which just happens to be trying to seize the copyright on every book which is out of print or whose author cannot be located).
Not!
I have some strong thoughts
I have some strong thoughts on Google that hit both sides of the spectrum. On the critical side I have spoken out on the book settlement, which I was hoping would be litigated and found to be fair use, and on censorship on youtube via the abuse of DMCA take downs. But feel free to call me out if my actions do not conform with the values I promote in my blogs or the mission of PK which I strongly believe in.
Outside of being a Google Public Policy Fellow, I am also a member of Free Software Foundation and EFF. A list my conflicts of interests can be found on my personal website under disclosures.
There is a common thread
There is a common thread here. The Free Software Foundation’s purpose, as stated by its founder, was to “turn copyright on its head” and to harm commercial software developers who wished to reap a reasonable reward for their work. The EFF, whose Chairman is on the board of BitTorrent, Inc., favors piracy of creative works, which again harms copyright holders. And Google — a corporation which is rich enough to pay authors a fair price for their work — seeks to appropriate copyright holders’ work without asking and for little or no compensation. (If the use of the works was to be considered “fair use,” then Google wouldn’t get an exclusive, but under the book deal they would.) So, in all cases, the agenda is against the Constitutional provision which seeks to reward authors and inventors for their work.
It’s worth noting that destroying copyright and regulating Internet providers are both strategies embraced by Google, one of PK’s benefactors and also yours. (This explains why PK is working so hard for Google in these areas and also why Google is paying you to work at PK.) For a very insightful article by Andrew Orlowski detailing this, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/01/google_wave/. Please do not blame me if you feel like a corporate pawn after reading it.