Bowing And Unbowed

Big congratulations to J. Craig Williams for being named a 2006 Southern California Journalism Awards winner — in the "Online" category, for "Weblog, Individual" — by the Los Angeles Press Club. Taking the group blog honors was LAVoice.org, which today alerts: "Avast! Barristers Off the Starboard Beam!"

[Update:] LAVoice.org also has this coverage of the awards banquet, as well as a sub-list of online category winners and runners-up.

Podlaw At The Corporate Podcasting Summit

I'm here at the Corporate Podcasting Summit, where our panel on "Where Next?" issues just wrapped up. With Colette and I on the panel, we covered a good deal of legal ground, but Andy McCormick is now specifically addressing intellectual property issues.

On our panel, we touched on the logistical issues around registering a work (or series of works) like a podcast with the Copyright Office. Andy's view seems to be that it's important to register to trigger the additional rights and advantages that accompany doing so, and that you should take the most conservative approach and get it done — despite what may turn out to be daunting inconvenience and expense considerations. I understand where he's coming from, but I'm still not happy about the conclusion. The conclusion I reach is that the registration process needs to adapt to more readily embrace media like blogs, podcasts, vlogs, videocasts, etc.

Andy also touched on the mind-numbing music licensing issues, and concluded by highlighting podsafe music and other similar alternatives. Absolutely — the most friction-free alternative for podcasters who want to incorporate music is to use music that wants to be incorporated. Like the copyright registration process, the traditional music licensing framework was established without referenced to the sorts of technologies and media we see today, and doesn't (yet? hope springs eternal) accommodate them well.

I asked a question about the myriad ways you can give notice of copyright or licensing information related to a podcast, and Andy thinks probably the best/most effective way to give notice is as part of the program itself. (Watch for my interview with Colette, we discuss these and related issues at some length.)

[Tags: corporate podcasting summit, podcasting law, podcasting legal guide, podlaw]

Making iPods Even Handier To Have Around

"The Wubbcast is the world's first video podcast for pre-schoolers..." [via]

Worlds Collide

Colette Vogele recently blogged from both the E-Commerce Best Practices Conference at Stanford Law School, and from the IP Commons session at Vloggercon. She was understandably (do you think the increasingly creaky phrase "e-commerce" was uttered even once at Vloggercon?) struck by the contrast: "I see a pretty big disconnect on how copyright is viewed from the big companies' perspective and from the perspective of the 'citizen media' producers or grass roots content producers. It'll be very interesting as these two groups deal with each other over time."

Colette will be my next guest on Sound Policy; we recorded the show today and she had excellent comments about the Podcasting Legal Guide and legal issues relating to podcasting in general. I'll let you know when it's up. In the meantime, toward the end of the show we were talking about some of Colette's favorite podcasts and she, like me, is a fan of Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture series. I hadn't listened in awhile, but Colette gave the big thumbs up to Marissa Mayer's recent talk. I listened on the way home and Colette was right, it's a great first-hand account of the company's philosophies and culture. (Thus did I also learn Marissa shares one of my unfortunate but hopefully somewhat endearing traits [update/confirmation, we have an "endearing"]: the occasional punctuation of public remarks with a goofy/maniacal laugh.)

Colette and I are co-panelizing at the Corporate Podcasting Summit on Wednesday, and I'll be around in Nor-Cal (mostly really Nor-Cal) for the rest of the week.

Shades of Blawg Patrol

Shades of Blawg Patrol in Matt Barr's Blawg Review #62, in the form of helpful (and adorable) visual aids.