UGC, wikis, blogs, folksonomies, virtual worlds, avatars, MMORGs, net neutrality. If all this looks like gobbledygook, you obviously didn’t attend the SCL 7th Annual Conference on Web 2.0: Internet Law in the 21st Century. It was an event which embodied the spirit of Web 2.0, featuring more audience participation and interactivity than ever before and providing more entertainment than YouTube, more information than Google and more enlightenment than Wikipedia to an enthusiastic and lively legal crowd.
So what else did you miss? New business practices and models on the Web, the US vs Europe online security and privacy debate, social networking at the BBC, wikis (no, not wookiees) at Allen & Overy, the joys of the E-Commerce Directive, the even greater joys of Rome II, the revelation that Clive Davies has an avatar with a tail and the (perhaps) even greater revelation that Professor Chris Reed has a real ukulele and can play it. Not to mention the answer to the question ‘if I commit a crime in the virtual Swedish Embassy in Second Life, am I subject to the laws of Sweden?’
From technical legal debate to tongue-in-cheek ‘web two point noughtiness’, no virtual stone was left unturned. All human life was there (together with some night elves and a battle dwarf). So where were you?
If you weren’t there, or even if you just want to relive the moment, much of the Conference proceedings will be available to view online by the end of July. A fuller report can be seen here.
