[Sci-tech-public] STS Circle, October 25th - Shun-Ling Chen - (please RSVP)

[Harvard STS]

*STS Circle at Harvard*
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*Shun-Ling Chen
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*Harvard Law School*
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*Collaborative Authorship, from Folklore to Wikiborg*

Monday, October 25th
12:15-2:00 p.m.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room 106

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Lunch is provided if you RSVP.
Please RSVP to sts at hks.harvard.edu by Thursday, October 21th.

*Abstract: *Is collaboration an exception or the rule in the production of
cultural resources? While the US courts recognize the prevalence of
collaboration in cultural activities, they consistently provide a narrow
interpretation of the “joint work” clause in Copyright law. This project
first identifies the current legal standards for “joint authorship” and asks
what the underlying collective moral choices are. I then contrast the legal
doctrine with two kinds of massive and open-ended collaborations: folklore
(in particular, indigenous songs) and the “wikiborg” (in particular,
Wikipedia and its sister projects). Each community has communal norms and
practices that reflect their distinct collective moral choices. As these
communities are part of the larger society, at times their normative systems
may conflict with the institutionalized legal system. I review instances
where communal norms are defended against appropriation by outsiders and
against individual members' private property claims.

*Biography: *Shun-ling Chen is an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School.
The subject of this paper will be further developed in her dissertation,
which is on the one hand a critique of US copyright law and on the other
hand a study of how norms are formed and transformed in self-organizing
collaborative communities. Portions of her dissertation work have been
published as “To Surpass or to Conform: What are Public Licenses For?” and
“Wikipedia: A Republic of Science Democratized”. She was a founding project
co-lead of Creative Commons Taiwan and was an intern at the Wikimedia
Foundation.

A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard events can be found on our website:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/
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