U.Va.'s Vaidhyanathan to Receive Public Knowledge Award

August 26, 2009 — Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of media studies in the University of Virginia's College of Arts & Sciences, has been chosen as one of three winners of the 2009 IP3 awards from Public Knowledge, a public-interest advocacy and education organization.

Awards are given to individuals who over the past year or over the course of their careers have advanced the public interest in one of the three areas of "IP" – intellectual property, information policy and Internet protocol. Vaidhyanathan, along with Karen Jackson and Sascha Meinrath, will receive their awards Oct. 15 at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Vaidhyanathan is one of the leading academic advocates for a more balanced copyright policy, according to Public Knowledge, and was recognized for his work in intellectual property. He is the author of "Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity" and "The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System." He has made the case for access to information in numerous articles and on television.