Jonathan Zittrain

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Jonathan Zittrain

Jonathan Zittrain (born 1969) holds the Chair in Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University and is a principal of the Oxford Internet Institute. He is also the Jack N. & Lillian R. Berkman Visiting Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School and director and founder with Charles Nesson of its Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

[edit] Life and work

Zittrain was educated at Yale University, Harvard Law School, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

His research includes digital property, privacy, and speech, and the role played by private "middlepeople" in Internet architecture. He is a principal investigator of the Open Net Initiative, a collaboration between researchers at the University of Toronto, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School. He was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in Eldred v. Ashcroft, and filed an amicus brief of law professors in the MGM v. Grokster Case.[1]

Zittrain is interested in the intersection of the law and the Internet. A partial list of projects he has started or been involved in includes:

The Open Net Initiative, which monitors internet censorship in repressive regimes;
Chilling Effects, a site that monitors cease and desist letters;
H2O, a group to develop better educational technnologies;
The Eldred v. Ascroft litigation challenging extension of the copyright term.