Public Knowledge President Gigi B. Sohn announced that Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, will receive the special President’s Award at this year’s IP3 awards.
Lofgren will receive the President’s Award because of her advocacy on virtually every issue of concern to Public Knowledge. “From Net Neutrality to fair use, there has been no more steadfast champion for the issues about which Public Knowledge cares than Zoe Lofgren,” Sohn said. “She has been the leading advocate for reforming our Internet policy and for bringing copyright policy into line with the realities of digital technology. It is my sincere pleasure to give her my special President’s Award this year.”
PK’s 2008 IP3 awards will also be presented to Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott, Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann and Public.Resource.org founder Carl Malamud.
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” – Internet Protocol, Intellectual Property and Information Policy. The awards will be presented Oct. 16 in Washington, D.C.
Scott was nominated for his tireless work on Net Neutrality and related issues. He was lauded in a Washington Post article earlier this year as “Net Neutrality’s Quiet Crusader,” and played a pivotal role in bringing the historic complaint against Comcast violation of Net Neutrality to the attention of the Federal Communications Commission. He will be given the award for contributions to Internet Protocol.
Von Lohmann was nominated for his work to advance the cause of fair use while protecting innovation. Von Lohmann has designed legal strategy for, and argued cases on behalf of, the cause of fair use of intellectual property before every level of Federal court. He is in the forefront of advocating new policies that reflect the protection of users and the reasonable balance between copyright and consumer rights. He will be given the award for contributions to Intellectual Property.
Malamud was nominated for his work providing public access to government documents. He founded Public.Resource.org in April 2007. Since then, Malamud has, among other activities, found that the Smithsonian Institution was selling public-domain photographs, and then bought copies and posted them to Flickr, and later in the year began scanning new judicial opinions and hosting open access copies. Malamud will be recognized for his contributions to Information Policy.
Judges for this year were:
- James Burger: Member, Dow Lohnes PLLC
- Bruce Gottlieb: Legal advisor to FCC Commissioner Michael Copps
- Kathleen Wallman: President, Wallman Consulting LLC
- Jennifer Urban: Clinical Associate Professor, University of Southern California Law School; Visiting Professor, Stanford Law School
- Richard Whitt: Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, Google
- Tim Wu: Professor, Columbia Law School
IP3 winners in 2007 were Wu, activist Jamie Love, the band OK Go. Red Hat Software Founder Bob Young received the special President’s Award.