About the Host
David S. Levine is an Associate Professor of Law at Elon University School of Law and an Affiliate Scholar at the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School. For 2014-2016, Dave is also a Visiting Research Collaborator at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy. Dave’s research interests include the operation of intellectual property law at the intersection of the technology field and public life, intellectual property’s impact on transparency, and the impact of copyright law in the arts.
About the Show
“[An] excellent show that is part of this new communications environment in which people can be offered a way to reflect rather than to react.” Prof. Manuel Castells on Hearsay Culture.
Welcome to the website dedicated to the KZSU-FM (Stanford University) radio interview show and podcast Hearsay Culture, hosted by Dave Levine, an Associate Professor of Law at Elon University School of Law and a Non-Residential Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School. In sum, each 50-55 minute show is designed to cover modern technology/Internet issues, but not from a purely law or geek perspective. From the KZSU-FM schedule description: “An interview talk show that focuses on the intersection of technology and society. How is our world impacted by the great technological changes taking place? Each week, a different sphere is explored.”
The name “Hearsay Culture” derives from the notion that technology — particularly the Internet — requires that humans filter information and decide how much weight is given to it. In United States law, “hearsay evidence” is generally defined as “a statement made out of court and not under oath and offered in evidence as proof that what is stated is true.” In that way, we live in a “hearsay culture” — the massive amount of information that people who interact with technology confront must be filtered with the consideration that it, too, might be hearsay.
Since its founding in May 2006, Hearsay Culture has received very favorable (and unsolicited) reviews on blogs and technology websites including ZDNet (“Some of the best discussion I’ve heard to date (and certainly recently) about the economics of intellectual property in the technological era . . .”), Concurring Opinions (listing the show as one of the author’s six favorite podcasts of 2007), and Technology Liberation Front’s Tim Lee(reviewing interview with Prof. Richard Epstein, and author noting that it is “one of [his] favorite podcasts”). More recently, Lee commented that the show is “probably the geekiest radio show in the history of the world,” which is viewed (at Hearsay Culture) as high praise!