The Information Society Project Lunch Speaker Series welcomes:
Susan Crawford
Visiting Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Assistant Professor of Law, Cardozo Law
School
who will be presenting
The Radio and the Internet
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
12:10p - 1:30p
Yale Law School
Room 120
Lunch and presentation to be followed by Q&A
Abstract:
In this article, I evaluate the
multi-billion-dollar 700 MHz auction regime established by the FCC in
2007-08 as a case study in the institutional role of the Commission.
The Commission's solicitude for the interests of large traditional
communications players is still as firmly in place as it was in the
1920s. Congressional pressures and the sense that the Internet ethos
has contributed to the economy did lead the Commission in 2007-08 to
take a moderately less-protective approach to the wireless incumbents'
business plans. Yet the Commission's vision of the "public interest"
remains incoherent. The FCC still appears to believe that it is best
for dominant private wireless carriers (the high-power broadcasters of
our day) to be able to dictate in detail how the airwaves are used.
I
suggest that the public interest would best be served by nudging this
country towards the Internet "no permission required," "common
carriage" ethos. No auction is truly neutral, and the background
assumptions of the 700 MHz auction are likely to lead to stalled
innovation for US wireless communications and continued inadequate
Internet access.
Biography:
Susan Crawford is currently a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School, teaching internet law and communications law. Last
term (fall 2007), she was a visiting professor at the University of
Michigan Law School. She is a member of the board of directors of ICANN and is the founder of OneWebDay,
a global Earth Day for the internet that takes place each Sept. 22. Ms.
Crawford received her B.A. (summa *** laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and J.D.
from Yale University. She served as a clerk for Judge
Raymond J. Dearie of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District
of New York, and was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering
(Washington, D.C.) until the end of 2002, when she left that firm to
enter the legal academy. Susan, a violist, usually lives in New York City and teaches at Cardozo Law School.
Michael Zimmer, PhD
Microsoft Resident Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School
e: michael.zimmer@yale.edu
w: http://michaelzimmer.org