Food and discussion begins at 12:30 pm. Everyone invited.

Brazil has been known as the country that “pledged allegiance to the Penguin”, in reference to its support to online freedom, free culture and software. However, that is only one side of the story.

In this talk I will describe the political struggles that took place in the country regarding Internet regulation in the past few years, and its recent developments. I will talk about the efforts to build a civil rights based regulation for the Internet (the so-called “Marco Civil”), as opposed to the efforts of criminalizing even trivial online activities.

I will also talk about the state of copyright in the country and the ongoing proposal for copyright reform. If times permits, I will also briefly discuss the appropriation of technology by the Brazilian and other global “peripheries”, and the innovation and cultural markets emerging out of them.

Bio:

Ronaldo Lemos is a visiting fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He is the director of the Center for Technology and Society at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) School of Law in Rio de Janeiro. He is also the director of the Creative Commons Brazil and former chairman of the Board of iCommons. He has earned his LL.B. and LL.D. from the University of Sao Paulo, and his LL.M. from Harvard Law School. He is books including “Direito, Tecnologia e Cultura,” published by FGV Press, 2005, and “Tecnobrega”, published in 2008. He is one of the founders of Overmundo, winner of the Digital Communities Golden Nica, granted by the Prix Ars Electronica 2007. He writes weekly for Folha de Sao Paulo, the largest newspaper in Brazil.