Illuminating the Profession: Women in Copyright; Landslide, A Publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law, March/April 2018

[Kip Currier: The new issue of Landslide magazine, a digital and print publication of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA), has a fascinating interview of 6 female copyright experts. Ralph Oman, a former U.S. Register of Copyrights (1985-1993) and a copyright law professor at George Washington University Law School, poses intriguing copyright-related questions, of interest to copyright wonks and would-be copyright practitioners: from the future of copyright in the digital age, to copyright cases that were decided “right” and those decided “wrong”, to “the number one legislative copyright priority in this Congress?”, and more.

Unfortunately, the full article is only available for members of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law. In my view, this article could and should have been made freely accessible future  to reach a much wider audience and showcase these outstanding and inspiring role models and leaders in copyright law, representing a wide range of sectors and copyright areas. [C'mon ABA, I get that you want to have a paywall for the IP Section of ABA, but how about providing some limited access or a few articles from an issue. The article's called "Illuminating the Profession: Women in Copyright", so why not further that aim by making the article accessible to more people and attracting more women to IP careers?!]

The six copyright luminaries are, in alphabetical order, June Besek; Dale Cendali; Mary Rasenberger; Kate Spelman; Francine Ward; Nancy Wolff. ]

"COVER STORY

Illuminating the Profession: Women in CopyrightBy Ralph Oman

Meet the copyright stars! Get to know some of the outstanding attorneys who practice copyright law."

Sources: Zinke tells employees diversity isn't important; CNN, March 26, 2018

Sara Ganim, CNN; Sources: Zinke tells employees diversity isn't important

"Several employees at the Interior Department have told CNN that Secretary Ryan Zinke repeatedly says that he won't focus on diversity, an apparent talking point that has upset many people within the agency.

Three high-ranking Interior officials from three different divisions said that Zinke has made several comments with a similar theme, saying "diversity isn't important," or "I don't care about diversity," or "I don't really think that's important anymore."

Each time, Zinke followed with something along the lines of, "what's important is having the right person for the right job," or "I care about excellence, and I'm going to get the best people, and you'll find we have the most diverse group anyone's ever had," the sources said."

Computer science faces an ethics crisis. The Cambridge Analytica scandal proves it.; Boston Globe, March 22, 2018

Yonatan Zunger, Boston Globe; 

Computer science faces an ethics crisis. The Cambridge Analytica scandal proves it.

"Software engineers continue to treat safety and ethics as specialities, rather than the foundations of all design; young engineers believe they just need to learn to code, change the world, disrupt something. Business leaders focus on getting a product out fast, confident that they will not be held to account if that product fails catastrophically. Simultaneously imagining their products as changing the world and not being important enough to require safety precautions, they behave like kids in a shop full of loaded AK-47’s...

Underpinning all of these need to be systems for deciding on what computer science ethics should be, and how they should be enforced. These will need to be built by a consensus among the stakeholders in the field, from industry, to academia, to capital, and most importantly, among the engineers and the public, who are ultimately most affected. It must be done with particular attention to diversity of representation. In computer science, more than any other field, system failures tend to affect people in different social contexts (race, gender, class, geography, disability) differently. Familiarity with the details of real life in these different contexts is required to prevent disaster...

What stands between these is attention to the core questions of engineering: to what uses might a system be put? How might it fail? And how will it behave when it does? Computer science must step up to the bar set by its sister fields, before its own bridge collapse — or worse, its own Hiroshima."

Pitt makes disciplinary moves after department implicated in sex-harassment investigation; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 22, 2018

Peter Smith, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pitt makes disciplinary moves after department implicated in sex-harassment investigation

"The University of Pittsburgh has disciplined an unspecified number of people associated with its Department of Communication after an investigation found violations of university policy and federal law against gender discrimination. 

The investigation, triggered by past and recent allegations of sexual harassment and sexual relationships between staff and students, “found a consistent pattern in which women were not as valued and respected as their male colleagues,” said a statement by Kathleen M. Blee, the dean of Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences.

“This resulted in an environment in which the inappropriate acts of the few were tolerated by the silence of others,” she acknowledged.

“The investigations revealed failures of systems and failures of character,” her statement added."

Can Higher Education Make Silicon Valley More Ethical?; Chronicle of Higher Education, March 14, 2018

Nell Gluckman, Chronicle of Higher Education; Can Higher Education Make Silicon Valley More Ethical?

"Jim Malazita, an assistant professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, hopes to infuse ethics lessons into core computer-science courses."...

"Q. You mentioned you’ve been getting some pushback.

A. I’ve had to do a lot of social work with computer-science faculty. The faculty were like, This sounds cool, but will they still be able to move on in computer science? We’re using different, messier data sets. Will they still understand the formal aspects of computing?

Q. What do you tell faculty members to convince them that this is a good use of your students’ time?

A. I use a couple of strategies that sometimes work, sometimes don’t. It’s surprisingly important to talk about my own technical expertise. I only moved into social science and humanities as a Ph.D. student. As an undergraduate, my degree was in digital media design. So you can trust me with this content.

It’s helpful to also cast it in terms of helping women and underrepresented-minority retention in computer science. These questions have an impact on all students, but especially women and underrepresented minorities who are used to having their voices marginalized. The faculty want those numbers up."

IBM settles legal dispute with diversity officer hired by Microsoft; IBM, March 5, 2018

Jan Wolfe, Reuters; IBM settles legal dispute with diversity officer hired by Microsoft

"International Business Machines Corp on Monday said it settled a trade secrets lawsuit it brought against its former chief diversity officer who left for a similar job at Microsoft Corp.

The settlement allows Lindsay-Rae McIntyre to begin working at Microsoft in July."

Here’s how Canada can be a global leader in ethical AI; The Conversation, February 22, 2018

Fenwick McKelvey, Abhishek Gupta, The Conversation;    Here’s how Canada can be a global leader in ethical AI

"Putting Canada in the lead

Canada has a clear choice. Either it embraces the potential of being a leader in responsible AI, or it risks legitimating a race to the bottom where ethics, equity and justice are absent.

Better guidance for researchers on how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedomsrelates to AI research and development is a good first step. From there, Canada can create a just, equitable and stable foundation for a research agenda that situates the new technology within longstanding social institutions.

Canada also needs a more coordinated, inclusive national effort that prioritizes otherwise marginalized voices. These consultations will be key to positioning Canada as a beacon in this field.

Without these measures, Canada could lag behind. Europe is already drafting important new approaches to data protection. New York City launched a task force this fall to become a global leader on governing automated decision making. We hope this leads to active consultation with city agencies, academics across the sciences and the humanities as well as community groups, from Data for Black Lives to Picture the Homeless, and consideration of algorithmic impact assessments.

These initiatives should provide a helpful context as Canada develops its own governance strategy and works out how to include Indigenous knowledge within that.

If Canada develops a strong national strategy approach to AI governance that works across sectors and disciplines, it can lead at the global level.