#HackTheAct

About

#HackTheAct is an open competition that asks you to imagine a better design for intellectual property law today. It’s also an opportunity to collaborate and engage with a variety of viewpoints. Finally, #HackTheAct represents a chance to demystify the legislation that affects your life everyday, and challenges you to think critically about the policy and procedure that give birth to law.

Starting on April 15th, the day of BLIP’s first annual Legal Hackathon, teams of “legal hackers” will have the opportunity to upload proposals to our collaborative platform Docracy. These proposals will present new solutions to the issues of IP law in the 21st century. The contest will run through 4/22, and the most innovative, engaging, and complete proposals will have the chance to win prizes. Proposals submitted on the day of the Hackathon will also have the opportunity to present their proposals in person.

You can download the full set of rules and guidelines here
Please register at the bottom of this page.

“The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it– often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.”

-Mark Zuckerberg, from Facebook’s IPO Filing

For a body of law designed to encourage creation, intellectual property law has run into a number of roadblocks in the early 21st Century. Despite an almost unprecedented shift in the means for creating, disseminating, and consuming new content, copyright has not received a meaningful update since the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998. The most recent attempts to tweak copyright and trademark law–SOPA and PIPA–were met with such intense public outcry that the bills found themselves shelved. We feel that there is an unprecedented opportunity here for the public to actively participate in remaking this law, cutting through sound bytes and outside influences, to learn about the law as it is today and actively draft legislation for tomorrow.

On the one hand, intellectual property seems particularly ripe for an upgrade. But really all law needs improvement and iteration–and thus far no one has taken the opportunity to hack the law. Nothing about the “hacker” ideal is inherently limited to the world of technology. Our intent is for this “Legal Hackathon” to provide a forum for engaged and open-minded parties to build law on these same principles. We aim to take apart the law that we have now, mix and match the pieces, and create something better.

There are countless possibilities available for changing the code of today’s law. We might completely reimagine copyright as shifting from regulating physical copies to regulating access to content. We might imagine a new system of compulsory licensing that strikes a balance between original content creators and those who want to remix and rework. Or we might imagine a new form of DRM that facilitates fair use while still protecting rightsholders. Our first step is to try and build copyrights and trademark rights that function better in the digital age. to build copyrights and trademark rights that function better in the digital age. But in the process, we also hope to build a new model for legislative creation, which disintermediates special interest groups, and creates a healthier, more interactive government.

For those who care about these issues, the Legal Hackathon goes beyond problem solving. It presents an opportunity to interact with the community of interests that bears both the benefits and costs of law. This is an opportunity to make your case, to hear new voices, and to build consensus in a way that has never before been available. There is no longer any excuse to remain content with the status quo. If you want to change the law, show us how.

Prizes

We initially thought bragging rights would be enough, but maybe these prizes will sweeten the deal!

First Prize: A Tour of Bloomberg and Lunch with the Execs

Runner-Up: A New Amazon Kindle

Thanks to Bloomberg law for sponsoring this important competition.


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