Law At BloggerCon; Creative Conferences

Professor Lessig will be leading a Law track at BloggerCon this weekend (here's the full schedule). Sounds great, I'm going to be sad to miss it (but I will henceforth be referring to Howard by his gangsta name, "Thitty-Eight Cent"):

There are two very different topics that fit within the category "law," and I'll be happy to facilitate a conversation of both. One is the extraordinarily important growth of law blogs, and their direct (and indirect) influence on the practice of law, and the decision of cases. It is said that Howard Bashman's blog has become the 38th Clerk at the Supreme Court. How will this area of blog space continue to grow?

The second important topic is about the relationship between the law and blogs — IP and libel law in particular. While copyright law is fairly good about the "fair use" of text, it is not very good with music, images and video. How will copyright and trademark law accommodate the increasing range of creativity folded into blog space? Will podcasting be one freedom too far? How might we expect litigation in this area to develop? What legislation might help avoid costly and burdensome litigation?

Meanwhile, JD got me thinking (musing, even) about the fact that conferences and Creative Commons just might be two great tastes that taste great together. I e-babblelorated in an email to JD over the weekend, and he blogged it today (BloggerCon and permission culture). Wouldn't it be cool/highly appropriate if BloggerCon were the first conference to apply CC licenses to the sessions? It's a foregone conclusion with this group the event will be sampled, remixed, shared, and podcast 'til the cows come home, and that's what everyone involved seems to intend. However, one of the reasons Creative Commons came into existence is to address the fact that copyright applies by default to any work that is "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." When JD asked about recording the conference and uploading it to ourmedia, I was struck by the fact it could be very hard for him to determine in advance whether there would be copyright claims asserted, by any number of possible parties. Creative Commons licenses could go a long way toward enhancing the certainty of the situation for all concerned. (And don't forget your slide decks, folks.)

[Bonus link, via where else but BoingBoing:] Strike a Lessig!

Spidering The Web

Front porch tenant (family Araneidae, I believe)

Here Comes The Son

"Beggin' your pardon ma'am, I'd be much obliged if y'all could please tell my mama real cowboys think twice about going with the satin and sequins."

P2P You And Me

My Wired CD arrived yesterday, what tasty goodness. Then, more good news re Creative Commons came in today's L.A. Times business section, Musicians to Place Songs on File-Sharing Network:

The musicians who license their works with the help of the Creative Commons advocacy group will soon have their songs spotlighted on a new version of the Morpheus file-sharing network, which has been vilified by the mainstream entertainment industry.

The Times biz section just doesn't seem complete these days without a P2P story. Yesterday's was Sony BMG, Grokster Join Forces, about MashBoxx.

Hi And Bye, Digital ID World!

It's disappointing to have to make such a surgical strike appearance at Digital ID World, but I'm glad at least to have an unbroken attendance streak at this event. It's an important conference that still flies somewhat under the radar. And Doc's keynoting tomorrow, which is inevitably a "Don't Miss."

Phil Windley did a great job blogging our panel, and asked me to take a look to make sure he got the message across. He did, with one clarification: Courts have been surprisingly active lately in upholding, defining, and enforcing fair use rights (Kelly v. Arriba Soft; Lexmark v. SCC; OPG v. Diebold). The Betamax doctrine has also been confirmed, and software that has been characterized as potentially a copyright violation in its own right has been found legal (Grokster). There has been enough of this in evidence lately that it begs the question what courts will think of hardware that gives software and content creators the ability to undermine the recent clarifications to these doctrines.

Boarding, see ya.