Public Knowledge Presents Sixth IP3 Awards to Deutsch, Jackson, Vaidhyanathan, Meinrath
Public Knowledge Presents Sixth IP3 Awards to Deutsch, Jackson, Vaidhyanathan, Meinrath
Public Knowledge Presents Sixth IP3 Awards to Deutsch, Jackson, Vaidhyanathan, Meinrath

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    Public Knowledge has presented the sixth annual IP3 awards at a ceremony in Washington October 15.

    Sarah Deutsch, Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Verizon, won the previously unannounced President’s award. She received the award for extraordinary dedication to protecting the free flow of information over the Internet. Among her many accomplishments, Sarah was a major force in the negotiations around the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, where she helped to ensure that Internet Service Providers obtained safe harbors that shielded them from strict liability for hosting or transmitting infringing material over their networks. She continues to be the most prominent advocate for balanced copyright laws among telecommunications companies.

    Sarah currently represents Verizon on a host of domestic and international Internet issues including the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty, the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention, Europe’s E-Commerce and Copyright Directives and all U.S. Internet legislation.

    Public Knowledge President Gigi B. Sohn said, “Sarah and Verizon are vital partners in Public Knowledge’s efforts to ensure that copyright law protects, and does not impede free speech, innovation and creativity.”

    In other awards previously announced, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) attended the ceremony and presented the award to Karen Jackson, the deputy secretary of technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia, 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.

    Siva 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.

    Sascha 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.

    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.