Dragon Con 2013 Panels

Carrying on my tradition of increasing the number of panels this year, I’ll be doing 7. (At least I broke the patern of doubling each year – that would have become unweildy in 2015) so if you miss me at one, you can catch me at another. Not that I’m going to speak on the same things each time, of course, but you never know.

On Friday, I’ll be doing a block of 3 consecutive panels, starting at 5:30pm, and going until 10pm. First up we’ll be screening TPB-AFK. It’s a little longer than we’d like, at 1hour 21 minutes long (and we only have a 1hour 30 slot, including changeovers) but we’ll make it work, and we’ll probably keep Q+A’s to a minimum.

Following that is ‘Nymrights’. For those that don’t know, it’s about the ability to use a pseudonym instead of a ‘real name’. There’s all kinds of reasons why, and many of them are not about ‘hiding’ and doing nefarious deeds. Look at this very site, I prefer to go by the pseudonym “K`Tetch” than my real name, because my real name is so common, it allows me some identity. I’ll be joined on the panel by the lovely Sarah Downey, a privacy activist and lawyer from Boston, and aestetix who runs the site ‘Nymrights’. It’s a little out of my usual area, but I think it’ll be a fun and interesting panel, where I can share my insights of having used K`Tetch as my main identity since 1996.

Following that, there’s ISP’s and 6 Strikes. This focuses more on my day job area, working for Torrentfreak. As with my 2010 panel, I’ll be accompanied by lawyers, to make sure I don’t put my foot in it. Joining me will be my good friends TJ Mihill, with whom I did the ‘Happy 10th Birthday Bittorrent” panel in 2011, and Blair Chintella, with whom I did “Defending P2P Litigation” last year. We’ll cover the whos, whats, whys and hows of the 6 strikes programs, and other similar ones around the world.

That’s going to be a heck of a lot of talking, so here’s hoping my voice holds out.

Saturday, I’m doing just the one panel, and it’s over on the British Media Track. At 5:30, I’ll be doing a panel on British SF/fantasy lit, covering Pratchett, Wyndham, Adams, and more, with Brit-track assistant director Rob Bowen. In preparation, I’ve been hunting out some new authors to see if there’s anyone new I can bring to people’s attention and I think people may be surprised. I’m unsure if we’ll be recording that, or indeed any other Brit-track panels.

Sunday I’m back at the Brit-track again, and this time on British Crime shows at 4PM. I knew watching the Bill religiously would be useful for something, and just to spice things up, I’ve been watching a few episodes of the Professionals, the Sweeney, and Z Cars (and the odd Dalziel and Pascoe). But I’ve been keeping up on my more modern ones as well.

Monday is another busy day with two panels not just back-to-back, but in different hotels.
At 11:30am, I’ll be covering the many intricacies of P2P litigation and Prenda Law. Here we again have TJ and Blair, as well as fellow EFF staffer and lawyer (in the apocryphal words of Michael Caine, “Lawyers, fousands of ‘em!”. Blair and I have been working on a Prenda law case for a number of months now (with me as his expert witness). It again promises to be an extremely interesting panel, with possibly some good debate.

Finally, at 1pm, I’m on the Pratchett panel back at the Brit-track. As with last year I’ll be joined by Needcoffee.com’s Roxanne Henkle. Last year’s Panel was a blast, with a lot of people dressed up, and a good chat about the whole of Pratchett’s work (not just Discworld)

I’ll endeavor to keep a liveblog going, but no promises, as internet access is notoriously terrible there, as is cell reception. But if you do come to one of my panels, do stop and say “Hi!” It will promise to be a tiring weekend, though it won’t stop me from signing any copies of No Safe Harbor anyone wants autographing….

Friday, August 30, 2013

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Monday, September 2, 2013