[audio/video of the remarks] [wiki notes]

Speaker: Charles Nesson, Berkman Center for Internet and Society

Charles Nesson gave a beautifully stirring speech, wrapping up the first day of Beyond Broadcast. When I told a friend in New York that I was attending a conference this weekend at the Berkman Center she said, rather vaguely, “they always seem to have good conferences there.” Now I know why.

As the founder of the Berkman Center, Nesson urges, optimistically, as we live in a time where extant businesses are trying to find their place in a new, more open medium, one that inherently inspires collaboration and the free flow of knowledge, one that is by design antagonistic to many of the core values of the old business models, that we find a way to retain our human values and ensure that they always be present in this new technological world. Again, of itself, this is not a difficult task, but we must require that the laws also reflect these values and provide a fair balance of common wealth knowledge and not just protection.