I’d like to welcome everyone to our panel discussion, “Intellectual Property Rights and The Modern University: How to Move Forward in the 21st Century” hosted by the USC Free Culture group. I’d like to thank a bunch of people, first, everyone with the USC Free Culture group, especially Cameron Parkins and Monica Alba. I’d like to thank all the schools for helping us to promote the event, The Annenberg School for Communication and everyone in Geoff Baum’s office, USC School of Cinematic Arts, the USC Gould School of Law and the School for Policy, Planning and Development. I’d, in particular, like the thank Dean Geoffrey Cowan for agreeing to moderate tonight’s discussion. Since 1996, Dean Cowan has been the Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, which includes the Communication and Journalism schools, and this is the final, and I must say very busy, semester of his deanship and so we’re very grateful that he could fit this in.

I also want to qualify that no one on the panel in any way condones these views, that no one on our panel is a member of USC Free Culture (even though you're all invited to join) and the panel itself is not a FC panel.

The USC Free Culture group began in the fall. Also in the fall, Cory Doctorow, a visiting professor and Canadian Fullbright chair to the School for Public Diplomacy published an opinion in the Daily Trojan titled “USC copyright rules are flawed” in response to a “Copyright Complaince” memo signed by Michael Pearce, USC Deputy Chief information officer and Michael L. Jackson, vice president for Student Affair. Universities are bellwethers for larger social problems. USC Free Culture believes that a close examination of the administration’s action and behavior since the fall reveals a clear embrace a specific, rigid Corporate intellectual property policy. But even more disturbing, we find that this corporate logic has infected the way the university treats its students in areas far outside the realm of copyright law.

We see a series of opportunities for the administration to show leadership when its comes to innovation and reform, when it comes to the fundamental question of the true role of the modern university in the early 21st Century. When the student anti-sweatshop group SCALE staged a peaceful action outside the University's "approved" speech zone, the administration had an opportunity to support student's most fundamental right for free speech and free expression. Instead, it forced them to move into an "approved" free speech zone. When the USC Free Culture group protested this action, USC FC was fined $114 and our privileges suspended (weren't able to but this venue till very late) until the fine was paid. A final opportunity arose when the Recording Industry Association of America sent its first wave of threats called "pre-litigation settlement letters" to approximately 400 student's from fourteen universities including USC re: their "illegal downloading" of music. The Daily Trojan published my opinion yesterday, "USC Discourages Free Exchange of Ideas," which illuminates this pattern (link).

Other university administrations - such as the University of Nebraska - have shown moral fiber in standing up to the recording industry's bullying tactics. Our university agreed to pass these threats along to students.

At the core, Doctorow's opinion illuminated USC corrupted by the Recording and Movie Industry's fear campaign against peer-peer technology. Doctorow asks the fundamental question: should USC adopt the Recording and Hollywood Studio Film industry's corporate logic or should they prioritize the pursuit of knowledge, the intellectual growth and exploration of its students? The public should not be fooled. The RIAA and MPAA are the not the primary enemies. They are funded - serving as a propaganda front - by the major corporate recording and movie studios (link).

Let me be clear. USC Free Culture supports copyrights, the right for musicians, writers, composers and all other creators to be compensated; we believe in a vibrant fair use provision.

USC Free Culture joins with these global efforts to re-orient the debate, to demand that universities prioritize their centuries-old role as a beacon for scholarship, debate, and intellectual freedom. We side with larger global struggles that have been resisting and pushing back efforts led by United States Trade representatives to institute a very specific, rigid Corporate IPR policy decided in closed-door consortium where consumers neither have a voice nor often even knows of their existence. Over the last decade, these democratic efforts promoting global sustainable development have pushed back US Trade representatives at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) through the Access to Knowledge treaty led by organizations like Knowledge Ecology International.

It is time Los Angelenos join this struggle. We want professors to feel free to use copyrighted material in their classrooms. We side with artists who believe in copyright reform, with hip-hop producers and DJs who want the freedom to remix and mash-up (not have their offices ramsacked by the Atlanta PD in concert with the RIAA), with gamers who envision dynamic new forms of entertainment. When we look outside our Ivory Tower, we see the deep, urgent need to imagine new, dynamic public "free culture" and spaces in Los Angeles, on the ground, in neighborhoods harmed by a dominating, anarchic corporate logic. What we are calling for is a new civic ethos, a revitalization of our public spaces, and a new corporate ethics where responsibility is found through transparency and dialogue.

Some have called this new movement a "Knowledge Ecology" movement. We really don't care what it's called.

USC Free Culture is planning a series of events. We ask people to sign our Petition outside and online asking the film school to offer students more open copyright options (link to petition and send us your email - freecultureusc@gmail.com - to join our mailing list). Our next open, free public panel - "Freeing Culture in Los Angeles: Outside the Ivory Tower" - will be on April 10th. We will be having our next action in response to USC "approved" packaged free-speech zone in a few weeks so check our blog. We're having a little gathering/shin-dig Thursday night so join us.

When an administration spend thousands encouraging incoming freshman to experience the joy of rush, but "manages" their free speech like consumers, we are troubled. We hope next semester that the new head of Information Technology and someone from the General Counsel office will join us in our annual series of panels. We want dialogue and again ask that the administration join us in these important discussions. In the opinion of the USC Free Culture, the integrity of the University of Southern California is at risk as an institution of higher learning. Universities should not adopt the corporate logic of the entertainment business. We should be searching together, struggling to find the balance between authors and creator's exclusive rights and the rights of the public. We should be working together to create a new public commons. The founders of the US Constitution knew the danger of monopoly. One wonders what they would think of today's Recording industry's propaganda fear tactics.

We are excited to begin this public dialogue and we thank our distinguished panelists and moderator for agreeing to join us. So we can begin to find a way forward, it's my pleasure to turn the evening over to the Dean of the School for Communication, Geoffrey Cowan.

[These remarks were condensed for the live presentation due to time constraints. Link to audio of panel discussion.]