Public Knowledge President Gigi B. Sohn announced that three winners have been chosen for the 2011 IP3 awards.
This year, the awards will be given Sen. Ron Wyden, Beth Noveck and Peter Jaszi. Awards are given to individuals who over the past year (or over the course of their careers) 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. 13 in Washington, D.C. (that will also feature a roast of Public Knowledge).
Ron Wyden, a U.S. senator from Oregon, is the winner of the Internet Protocol award. There are few in Congress who match is record of promoting and protecting a free and open online environment. This record started in 1995, when as a member of the House of Representatives, Wyden was a cosponsor of the amendment to the Communications Act of 1996 that provided a safe harbor for what were then called “interactive computer services” for content posted online over which the service had no control. That record continues today as Sen. Wyden stands firm in the Senate holding up legislation that would do great harm to the structure of the Internet and expand governmental power.
Beth Noveck, a professor at New York Law School, is the winner of the Information Policy award. From 2009 to 2011, she was the deputy chief technology officer of the U.S. government, in charge of implementing the Open Government Initiative. That program started a new era in government by requiring agencies to post information online, improve the quality of information and create a culture of open government linking the agencies to the American people.
Peter Jaszi, professor at the American University’s Washington College of Law, is the winner in the Intellectual Property category. Jaszi has for many years provided a public interest vision for policy on intellectual property. He has worked with a variety of communities of practice, including libraries, filmmakers, poets, and creators of open course ware, to expand their ability to employ fair use. He has put forward a vision of balanced copyright law that is usable by non-lawyers in his new co-authored book, Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright.
The judges for this year’s competition were:
Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press;
Patricia Aufderheide, professor at the American University School of Communications;
Tyrone Brown, former Federal Communications Commission member;
Jessica Gonzalez, vice president of policy and legal affairs for the National Hispanic Media Coalition;
Christopher Sprigman, associate professor at the University ofVirginia School of Law.