Kai Puolamäki is a Finnish

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and Internet activist. He has been a vocal spokesman of the Finnish

anti-copyright Criticism of copyright, or anti-copyright sentiment, is a dissenting view of the current state of copyright law or copyright as a concept. Critics often discuss philosophical, economical, or social rationales of such laws and the laws' implem ...

movement.

Academic career

Puolamäki graduated from the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

in 1996. In 2001 he presented his

doctoral thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

titled ''Breaking of R-parity and

supersymmetry Supersymmetry is a Theory, theoretical framework in physics that suggests the existence of a symmetry between Particle physics, particles with integer Spin (physics), spin (''bosons'') and particles with half-integer spin (''fermions''). It propo ...

in supersymmetric models''. His earlier publications in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

have included articles on the

Higgs boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the excited state, quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the field (physics), fields in particl ...

. Since 2003 his publications have concentrated on

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

and

pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the task of assigning a class to an observation based on patterns extracted from data. While similar, pattern recognition (PR) is not to be confused with pattern machines (PM) which may possess PR capabilities but their p ...

. He now works as researcher (equivalent to a North American

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

) at the

Helsinki University of Technology Helsinki University of Technology (TKK; ; , HUT in international usage) was a technical university in Finland. It was located in Otaniemi, Espoo in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and it was one of the three universities from which the modern d ...

in the Laboratory of Computer and Information Science (the former laboratory of professor emeritus Teuvo Kohonen).

Internet activism

Puolamäki is a founder and board member of Electronic Frontier Finland, the Finnish counterpart to the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

, and has written many of the group's position papers. He has been a regular

expert witness An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...

on copyright issues at the

Finnish Parliament The Parliament of Finland ( ; ) is the unicameral and supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. The P ...

. He has coined the term " copyright commandeering" to refer to instances of misuse of claims of exclusive rights under copyright. In 2006 he started the ''Anti-Commandeering Investigation, Training and Resources'' centre modeled on

Anti-Piracy Investigation, Training and Resources The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is the organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide. It is a non-profit members' organisation registered in Switzerland and founded in Italy in 19 ...

centre of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (

IFPI The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is the organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide. It is a non-profit members' organisation registered in Switzerland and founded in Italy in 1 ...

) to register instances of copyright commandeering. In addition to

blogging A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

, he regularly contributes to the

Finnish language Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Finnic languages, Finnic language of the Uralic languages, Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official langu ...

sfnet.* and finet.*

Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

hierarchies. He is the unofficial maintainer of the finet.* hierarchy.Finetin ryhmät

References

External links

Personal home page

Pattern Discovery group
at the

Publications at the INSPIRE database

Website Terms of Use that prohibit linking
{{DEFAULTSORT:Puolamaki, Kai Intellectual property activism 21st-century Finnish physicists Copyright activists Finnish bloggers Living people Year of birth missing (living people)