Joi Ito
Joi Ito in 2007
Born	Joichi Ito (1966-06-19) June 19, 1966 (age 46) Kyōto, Japan
Residence	Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
Nationality	Japanese
Alma mater	Tufts University (attended) University of Chicago (attended)
Known for	Blogging, Moblogging, Creative Commons
Relatives	Mizuko Itō (sister)

Joichi "Joi" Ito (伊藤 穰一, Itō Jōichi^?, born June 19, 1966) is a Japanese activist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Director of the MIT Media Lab.^[1]

Ito has received recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded, among other companies, PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. He maintains a blog, a wiki and an IRC channel. Ito is the Chairman of Creative Commons, on the Board of Trustees of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation^[2], the board of Directors of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation^[3] and General Partner of Neoteny Labs.^[4]

Family and education[link]

Joi Ito (circa 1981)

Ito was born in Kyoto, Japan. His family moved to Canada and then when Ito was about age 3 to a suburb of Detroit, Michigan in the United States where his father became a research scientist and his mother a secretary for Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., now Ovonics. Company founder Stanford R. Ovshinsky was impressed with Ito, whom he thought of almost as his son. Ovshinsky helped Ito develop his interests in technology and social movements, and at age 13 gave him work with scientists, saying, "He was not a child in the conventional sense."^[5]

Ito and his sister Mizuko Ito, who is called Mimi, spent summers in Japan with their grandmother who taught them traditional Japanese culture.^[6] At 14, he returned to Japan when his mother was promoted to president of Energy Conversion Devices Japan. He studied at the Nishimachi International School^[7] and for high school, the American School in Japan in Tokyo.^[8] Ito also learned "street language, street smarts, and computers." One of few Japanese using modems before deregulation of networking reached Japan in 1985, Ito had found The Source and the original MUD by his teens (and by 26 was working on his own MUD).^[6]

Ito returned to the U.S. to attend Tufts University near Boston as a computer science major, where he met, among others, Pierre Omidyar, later founder of eBay.^[9] Finding his course work too rigid and believing that learning computer science in school was "stupid",^[9] Ito dropped out of Tufts to briefly work for Ovonics. Ovshinsky encouraged him to return to school. He enrolled at the University of Chicago in physics but dropped out on discovering, in his opinion, the program at Chicago to be more oriented towards producing practical engineers than towards teaching an intuitive understanding of physics.^[5] In the Fall of 1985 he became the first student to register for a pioneering program of online courses offered by Connected Education, Inc., for undergraduate credit from the New School for Social Research.

Ito is one of Timothy Leary's godsons—a close non-traditional family-like relationship, an idea said to have been conceived by Leary for a few of his friends.^[10][11] Ito's sister is Mizuko Ito, a cultural anthropologist studying media technology use, and the musician Cornelius is his second cousin. Ito currently lives in Dubai, with his wife Mizuka Ito (née Kurogane).

Later life[link]

Ito became a disk jockey working in nightclubs in Chicago such as The Limelight and The Smart Bar and to work with Metasystems Design Group to start a virtual community in Tokyo.^[6] Later, Ito ran a nightclub in Roppongi, Japan called XY Relax with help from Joe Shanahan of Metro Chicago/Smart Bar. He helped bring industrial music from Chicago (Wax Trax) and later the rave scene, including importing Anarchic Adjustment to Japan.

Ito at the 2008 Creative Commons panel discussion: “The Commons: Celebrating accomplishments, discerning futures.

Ito is the Chairman of Creative Commons. He is on the board of Digital Garage,^[12] Culture Convenience Club (CCC),^[13] Tucows,^[14] Machinima.com,^[15] EPIC,^[16] Technorati, and WITNESS. He is the founder and CEO of the venture capital firm Neoteny Co., Ltd. In October 2004, he was named to the board of ICANN for a three-year term starting December 2004. In August 2005, he joined the board of the Mozilla Foundation.^[17] He served on the board of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) from March 2005 until April 2007. He currently serves as a Board Emeritus for OSI.^[9] He was a founding board member of Expression College for Digital Arts^[18] as well as the Zero One Art and Technology Network.^[19] In 1999, he served as the Associate to Mr. Mount (the executive producer) on the film The Indian Runner.^[20] Ito also served as a Board Member of Energy Conversion Devices from 1995 to 2000.

Ito is a venture capitalist and angel investor and was an early stage investor in Kickstarter,^[21] Twitter,^[22] Six Apart, Technorati, Flickr, SocialText, Dopplr, Last.fm, Rupture, Kongregate, etology Inc, Fotopedia and other Internet companies.^[23] A vocal advocate of emergent democracy and the sharing economy, Ito is a doctoral candidate in Business Administration focusing on the sharing economy at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University. He is the author of Emergent Democracy.^[24] Ito is Senior Visiting Researcher of Keio Research Institute at SFC.^[25] In May 2011, it was announced that Ito's company, Digital Garage, will provide PR, marketing, product marketing research and market research for Linkedin Japan.^[26]

Ito is a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT) and a Divers Alert Network (DAN) Instructor.^[27]

In recent years, Ito has become critical of what he sees as Japan's inward focus. He stated in a 2011 interview that he thinks Japan needs to look internationally if it is to continue to be "relevant', and that this is one of the reasons that he is on the board of Tokyo's Nishimachi International School. ^[28] He also serves as a member of the Japanese Cabinet, as a member of the "IT Strategic Headquarters" (高度情報通信ネットワーク社会推進戦略本部) ^[29]

Journalism[link]

Ito has written opinion editorials for the Asian Wall Street Journal^[30] and The New York Times^[31][32] and has published articles in numerous other magazines^[33] and newspapers. He has had regular columns in The Daily Yomiuri, Mac World Japan, Asahi Pasocom, Asahi Doors, and other media sources. His photographs have been used in The New York Times Online,^[34] BusinessWeek,^[35] American Heritage,^[36] Wired News,^[37] Forbes,^[38] and BBC News.^[39] He was on the early editorial mastheads of Wired and Mondo 2000. He has authored and co-authored a number of books including Dialog - Ryu Murakami X Joichi Ito with Ryu Murakami. He has hosted televisions shows including The New Breed and SimTV shows on NHK.

Media "lists" and honors[link]

Ito was listed by Time magazine as a member of the "Cyber-Elite" in 1997. He was also named one of the 50 "Stars of Asia" in the "Entrepreneurs and Dealmakers" category by BusinessWeek^[40] and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for supporting the advancement of IT in 2000.^[41] He was selected by the World Economic Forum in 2001 as one of the "Global Leaders for Tomorrow".^[42] chosen by Newsweek as a member of the "Leaders of The Pack (high technology industry)" in 2005,^[43] and listed by Vanity Fair as a member of "The Next Establishment" in the October Issue, 2007.^[44] Joi Ito was also named by BusinessWeek as one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web in 2008.^[45] On July 22, 2011 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his role as one of the world's leading advocates of Internet freedom from the University of Oxford Internet Institute.^[46]

In 2011, with Ethan Zuckerman, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers, in which he stated the Best idea is "Users controlling their own data".^[47]

MIT Media Lab[link]

The New York Times reported that Joi Ito was named to be the director of the MIT Media Lab. His appointment was called an "unusual choice" since Ito studied at two colleges, but did not finish his degrees. "The choice is radical, but brilliant," said Larry Smarr, director of Calit2.^[48] Ito officially began his role on September 1, 2011.^[49][1]

Nicholas Negroponte, Media Lab's co-founder and chairman emeritus, described the choice as bringing the media to "Joi's world".^[50] In an interview with Asian Scientist Magazine, Joi Ito discusses his vision for the MIT Media Lab, and how he likes the word “learning” better than the word “education”.^[51]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ito Joichi

	Japan portal
	Biography portal
	Business portal

• Official webpage
• Official webpage (Japanese)
• Joi Ito at the Internet Movie Database
• Joichi Ito Interview Video

Lawrence Lessig
Born	(1961-06-03) June 3, 1961 (age 51) Rapid City, South Dakota, U.S.
Occupation	Founder, Creative Commons Founder, Stanford Center for Internet and Society Professor, Harvard Law School
Spouse	Bettina Neuefeind
Website
lessig.org

Interview with Lawrence Lessig in 2009.

Lawrence "Larry" Lessig (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention.^[1]

He is a director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University and a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Prior to rejoining Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society. Lessig is a founding board member of Creative Commons, and also is on the board of MapLight.^[2] He is on the advisory boards of the Sunlight Foundation^[3] and Americans Elect.^[4] He is a former board member of the Free Software Foundation, Software Freedom Law Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.^[5]

Academic career[link]

Born in Rapid City, South Dakota, Lessig grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and earned a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Management (Wharton School) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity) in England, and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court.^[6]

Lessig started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was Professor from 1991 to 1997. From 1997 to 2000, he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.^[6] He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the school's Center for Internet and Society.^[7]

Lessig returned to Harvard in December 2008 as Professor and Director of the "Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics".^[8]

Political activism[link]

Lessig is currently considered politically liberal. As a law clerk, however, he worked for both Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, two influential conservative judges.

Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, serving as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program^[9] in 1978 and almost pursued a Republican political career.

What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete a graduate degree in philosophy there and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, so acquiring a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.

Lessig refuses to embrace conventional libertarianism. While Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention, he favors regulation by calling himself "a constitutionalist". In his blog, Lessig came out in favor of then-Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of Obama's campaign as one of his chief reasons. On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.^[10]

In a speech in 2011, Lessig revealed that he was disappointed with Obama's performance in office, criticizing it as a "betrayal", and he criticized the president for using "the (Hillary) Clinton playbook".^[11] Lessig has called for state governments to call for a national constitutional convention,^[12] and that the convention be populated by a "random proportional selection of citizens" which he suggested would work effectively. He said "politics is a rare sport where the amateur is better than the professional."^[12]

Constitutional convention[link]

In 2010, Lessig began to organize for a national constitutional convention.^[13] He co-founded Fix Congress First! with Joe Trippi.^[14] Lessig called for a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution^[15] in a September 24–25, 2011 conference co-chaired by the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator,^[16] in Lessig's October 5 book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It,^[17] and at the Occupy protest in Washington, DC.^[18] Reporter Dan Froomkin said the book offers a manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections.^[19] Lessig's initial constitutional amendment would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle.^[20] Lessig's web site convention.idea.informer.com allows anyone to propose and vote on constitutional amendments.^[21]

Rootstrikers[link]

Change Congress, founded by Lessig and Joe Trippi, the Fix Congress First project, and the Rootstrikers project were created to help volunteers to address the problem of money in politics.^[22][23] In November 2011, Lessig announced all three projects would become part of the "United Republic". http://unitedrepublic.org/.  organization, along with Dylan Ratigan’s Get Money Out campaign.^[24][25]

Money in politics[link]

At the iCommons iSummit 07, Lessig announced that he will stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and will work on political corruption instead.^[26] This new work may be partially facilitated through his wiki, "Lessig Wiki", which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption.^[27] Lessig criticized the revolving door phenomenon in which legislators and staffers leave office to become lobbyists and have become beholden to special interests.^[28]

In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California's 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of U.S. Representative Tom Lantos.^[29] Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", the decision was made not to run for the vacant seat.^[30]

Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption.^[30] To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "Change Congress".^[31] In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics.^[32] He is a board member of MAPLight.org, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.

Lessig has known president Barack Obama since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago, and had been mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry.^[33] However, this position is now held by Julius Genachowski.^[34]

At his talk at the 2009 Aspen Ideas Festival, Professor Lessig talked about Forbin Problems in a talk entitled Will Technology Change Our Lives?^[35] and also about his idea that the American public has lost faith in the central institution of our democracy, Congress.^[36]

Internet and computer activism[link]

"Code is law"[link]

In computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the source code). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that "Code is law." Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time and released the book as Code: Version 2.0 in December 2006.

Legislative reform[link]

Despite presenting an anti-regulatory standpoint in many fora, Lessig still sees the need for legislative enforcement of copyright. He has called for limiting copyright terms for creative professionals to five years, but believes that introducing the bureaucratic procedure needed to renew trademarks, by making copyright need to be renewed for up to 75 years after this five year term, would mean that creative professionals' work, many of the independent, would become more easily and quickly available.^[37] Lessig has repeated taken a stance that privatization through legislation like that seen in the 1980s in the UK with British Telecommunications is not the best way to help the Internet grow. He said, "When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place," "My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty. If there is not government to insist on those values, then who?" "The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves." ^[38]

Free Culture[link]

In 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and on March 28, 2004 he was elected to the FSF's Board of Directors.^[39] In 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[40] Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.

He proposed the concept of "Free Culture".^[41] He also supports free software and open spectrum.^[42] At his Free Culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, half of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to both free/open source software and innovation.

Lessig and Jimmy Wales at the iCommons iSummit07 in Dubrovnik.

In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project.^[43] A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference.

Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.^[44]

Net neutrality[link]

Lessig has long been known to be a supporter of Net Neutrality. In 2006, he testified before the US Senate that he believed Congress should ratify Powell's four Internet freedoms and add a restriction to access-tiering, i.e. he does not believe content providers should be charged different amounts. The reason is that the Internet, under the neutral end-to-end design is an invaluable platform for innovation, and the economic benefit of innovation would be threatened if large corporations could purchase faster service to the detriment of newer companies with less capital. However, Lessig has supported the idea of allowing ISPs to give consumers the option of different tiers of service at different prices. He was reported on CBC News as saying that he has always been in favour of allowing internet providers to charge differently for consumer access at different speeds. He said, "Now, no doubt, my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong - that it doesn't go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is 'recent' is baseless. If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong." ^[45]

Combating sexual abuse[link]

In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School which he had attended as an adolescent.^[46] Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court.^[47] In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to restrict the scope of immunity radically, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.^[48]

Media references[link]

Lessig appears as a character in a 2005 episode of the television political drama The West Wing ("The Wake Up Call", season 6, episode 14). Lessig’s character, portrayed by Christopher Lloyd, is intended to be a realistic depiction including such details as citing his book The Future of Ideas and his expertise in Eastern European constitutional law.^[49]

Artist group Monochrom performed a "Love Song for Lessig" on Boing Boing TV in the November 15, 2007 episode.^[50] The German term "lässig" (meaning "cool" or "relaxed") is pronounced the same as Lessig's last name, and "Love Song for Lessig" uses the homonym for humor.

"Prometeus - The Media Revolution", a video produced by Italian internet consulting company Casaleggio Associati that attempts to predict the future of media over the next 40 to 50 years, proposes Lawrence Lessig to become the new US Secretary of Justice and declare copyright to be illegal in 2020.

Legal challenges[link]

Lessig's political opinions on copyright law have led to legal challenges where he has attempted to put them into action without legislative change. In March 2003 he acknowledged severe disappointment with his Supreme Court defeat in the Eldred copyright-extension case, where he unsuccessfully tried to convince Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who has sympathies for de-regulation, to back his "market-based" approach to intellectual property regulation.^[51]

Notable cases[link]