Biography

Laura Quilter is an attorney and librarian. She researches and writes on the rights of information users and creators, and looks at the questions from the broad perspective of a librarian.

She also regularly speaks to libraries, nonprofits, and audiences of creators, artists, and mediamakers, on matters of free expression, intellectual property, content licensing, and privacy.

Laura's interests may be broadly expressed as the effect of information policy on culture, social justice, and access to knowledge.

Out of those broad interests, one ongoing research program focuses on the nexus of information controls between creators, third-party gatekeepers, and consumers. From 2004 through 2008, Laura is researching secondary copyright liability and the DMCA safe harbor, and developing tools and best practices that protect consumer rights.

Related research projects include employee/employer transfers of intellectual property and the threats such transfers pose to employees' fundamental expressive rights; the use of "material transfer agreements" in the life sciences; and intellectual property claims in collaborative creations. She is also working on digital preservation issues, including licensing for archival purposes and a review of mass digitization contracts. Laura's newest endeavor is examining the economic and social justice aspects of intellectual property — specifically, the ways in which new technologies and distribution models will affect underprivileged persons in both developing nations and economically underprivileged communities.