Public Knowledge President Gigi B. Sohn announced that three winners have been chosen for the 2009 IP3 Awards. In addition, a special President’s Award will also be presented. The name of that winner has not yet been disclosed.
This year, the awards will be given to Siva Vaidhyanathan, Karen Jackson and Sascha Meinrath. Awards are given to individuals who over the past year (or over the course of their careers) who have advanced the public interest in one of the three areas of “IP” –Intellectual Property, Information Policy and Internet Protocol. The awards will be presented at a ceremony Oct. 15 in Washington, D.C.
Vaidhyanathan was recognized for his work in intellectual property. Now a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, Vaidhyanathan for a decade has been one of the leading academic advocates for a more balanced copyright policy. He is the author of two books, His first book, “Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity,” (New York University Press, 2001) and “The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System” (Basic Books, 2004), with a third scheduled for next year. He also has written numerous articles and appeared on TV making the case for access to information.
Jackson, the deputy secretary of technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia, was recognized for her work in information policy. She was recognized for her work in making information available to local governments about how to bring broadband to their areas, and for leading the Commonwealth’s broadband mapping project using state resources to complete the task ahead of many other states. She has worked with government and industry to become one of the preeminent broadband advocates in the country.
Meinrath was recognized for his work in Internet protocol. He is the creator of the Open Technology Initiative (OTI) at the New America Foundation. OTI is dedicated to using the potential of innovative open technologies by studying their social and economic impact, providing in-depth, objective research, analysis, and findings. He was also a principal in creating the Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open platform designed to allow researchers to study traffic on the Internet. He also has a long history of building wireless community networks, and provides expertise on spectrum issues to the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition.
Judges for this year were:
Kenneth DeGraff, legislative director for Rep. Mike Doyle;
Parul Desai, vice president of the Media Access Project;
Jason Schultz, Acting Director, Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic, UC Berkeley School of Law;
Jonathan Taplin, professor at the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California, and a member of the Public Knowledge Board of Directors.
IP3 winners in 2008 were Ben Scott, policy director at Free Press; Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Carl Malamud, founder of Public.Resource.org. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) received the special President’s Award.
Public Knowledge is a public-interest advocacy and education organization that seeks to promote a balanced approach to intellectual property law and technology policy that reflects the “cultural bargain” intended by the framers of the constitution. More information available at: http://www.publicknowledge.org
Members of the media may contact Communications Director Shiva Stella with inquiries, interview requests, or to join the Public Knowledge press list at shiva@publicknowledge.org or 405-249-9435.