Almost Live, From The Plawdosphere

Some topical and timely law related podcasts you might want to check out:

• Craig Williams and Robert Ambrogi have a new show called Coast to Coast, and are off to a great start with interviews from ABA President Michael S. Greco, who addresses concerns about the relevance of the ABA to solo and small firms (which he says are the fastest growing segment of the legal profession, and already are home to 80% of the practitioners in the U.S.), and Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who discusses the Kelo case, and takes on the notion that there are any appellate jurists who do not, as part of their job descriptions, make law. Good show, looking forward to more. (Craig, fix your audio dude! Try Google Talk instead of Skype, I hear people are liking the audio quality. Also guys, your show needs its own feed.)
• Evan Schaeffer's Episode 35 offers a plaintiff's lawyer's perspective on the Vioxx litigation. (Feed)
• Catholic organization Fidelis has scooped the plawdosphere and will be podcasting next week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge John Roberts. (Feed) Anyone else podcasting the hearings? Let me know.
• Dana Greenlee does a Boston Legal podcast (called "Boston Illegal Radio;" feed), and has just learned she's won the CBS Podcaster competition. Congratulations!

Don't forget to visit the law node at Indiepodder.org, and Blawgcast.com, for more on podcasts of the legal persuasion.

Hurricane Relief Podcast PSA

For our podcasting readers: "Brian Russell of Audioactivism.org has just created a PSA that can be used by blogs and radio stations to promote donations to disaster relief..."

Reading Licenses: Commercial Music in Podcasts

Cory Doctorow read the PodShow license for use of commercial music in podcasts and recovered enough from the shock to post about it. He illustrates why it's important to read the fine print. After all, you might want to simply to use the music, not limit what you can and cannot talk about.

As Marty recently said, "Maximizing every short term advantage may not be the best long-term strategy."

Big Blue Podcasts

Here's the IBM and the Future Of... podcast, and another one from their Systems and Technology group. I haven't listened to either yet, but really think podcasts from businesses will be a big deal.

Apple's Uncanny Timing

• Monday, June 27. Grokster decision issues from U.S. Supreme Court. Court concludes that "statements or actions directed to promoting infringement" should trump the safe harbor represented by the Sony-Betamax decision. Applies to secondary liability for user infringement in connection with all products "capable of both lawful and unlawful use." Fact of probable "staggering" scope of direct infringement by users, while not controlling, undeniably shades the analysis.
• Tuesday, June 28. iTunes 4.9 debuts, now with podcasts. The good news: many podcasts are copyright friendly. The bad news: many, not so much.
• Wednesday, June 29. The Wall Street Journal reports that "Apple will weed out podcasts that include full-length songs for which [sic] podcasters don't have permission to use," and that "Mr. Jobs says Apple has an agreement from music companies that allows podcasters to play 30-second song clips in their shows."
• Thursday, June 30. Apple Podcast Subscriptions Top A Million.

Hmm. I begin to understand what Ernie Miller meant by "ironically." Like the business models of Grokster and StreamCast, the iPod business model hinges on users having worthwhile, perhaps frequently infringing, listening material. In podcasting then, Apple has the proverbial Tiger (no pun intended) by the tail. Will it behave, or not? (Playing with fire and bargaining with the devil are two other hackneyed but apropos expressions that come to mind.) Will podcasts strengthen Apple's ability to fend off secondary liability claims, or just multiply the number of direct user infringements being facilitated? It's tough to say, but I bet it's got legal in a tizzy.

On the Subject of Podcasting . . .

The new issue of the ABA's Law Practice Today webzine has lot of great articles on practice of law topics and I recommend it highly.

However, I wanted to emphasize Tom and I's article in this issue called "MP3s, Podcasts and Internet Audio Resources for Lawyers," which points to a variety of great resources for lawyers interested in podcasting, either as consumers or producers. We tried to make it a handy starting point for lawyers and others wanting to find good entry points into the world of podcasting.

There is an allusion in the article to future Between Lawyers podcasts and I can confirm that we are talking about that internally and externally. I'd welcome hearing in the comments your thoughts and ideas about a Between Lawyers podcast series, or even the possibility of multiple types of Between Lawyers podcasts.

In the meantime, check out some of the podcast links in Tom and I's article and visit Bag and Baggage for links to some new podcasts from Denise.

Recommended Listening

Any person in a business or other organization who cares about the entity's financial and technological well being would be better off for listening to Dan Bricklin's Software Licensing Podcast.

Driving Hazards Aside

Our neighbor Ernie Miller has called for Congress to podcast. Here's his roundup of responses, pro and con. I'm stunned no one yet has raised the critical public safety issue of all those drivers nodding off on the road. (Kidding, I think it's a great idea and high time.)

Fast Uptake For Podcasting

Infinity Broadcasting, which I believe is the second largest radio company behind Clear Channel, has announced an all-podcasting radio station. There are competing creation myths about how long podcasting has been around, but it seems inarguable that this is some sort of record for uptake of a communications technology by the mainstream.

UPDATE: Discussion of whether the blogosphere and the podpeople represent a tipping point for MSM here and here.

UPDATE: More discussion of KYOU from Blawgcast.

Good In Embed

Adam Curry is testing beta podcasting software that PodShow eventually will be offering for Windows. Among other things, it sounds like it will encode the ID3 tags without fuss or muss for the user. I just pointed him toward the Creative Commons information on embedding licenses in audio. With any luck that'll get built in too.

Re: Podcasting: What Makes For A Good Law Podcast?

I spend lots of time in cars and airplanes and behind strollers (running and walking). Thank goodness for podcasts. And for iPodder and similar applications. When things that interest you are being automatically delivered to a device you have with you all the time, you don't need to "make time" to listen. Time makes itself. Driving around, getting an oil change, etc. Whenever I'm going to be stuck somewhere is when I listen. So, some days I catch a few shows, some days I catch a whole bunch, some days none. This translates into lots of intellectual candy for me, and no more "what am I going to listen to?" thoughts or housekeeping before running out the door. I love the degree of control it gives you over the signal:noise ratio in your life.

As far as the intersection of podcasting and the legal field, as with blogs this is a great vehicle for lawyers and firms to demonstrate expertise and distribute information on important, complicated, and/or controversial topics. Or maybe just to lighten up a little. It also strikes me as a great tool to use internally: in-house MCLE, training, informational meetings, etc. could be captured as podcasts for those unable to be there in person or even virtually at the particular scheduled time. There are a whole host of internal administrative uses I would think.

But enough about that — I couldn't agree with Marty more about timeshifted and portable appellate oral argument. Though forward-looking courts are Webcasting, I really hope we'll start to see some syndicating their audio before long as well, or adopting an encouraging attitude toward those who want to do so.

As far as excellent production values and relentlessly engaging material go, it's tough to beat Evan Schaeffer and his various podcasts including "Law Related Things That Suck." The current installment is some biting political commentary regarding the Schiavo case: "In these sorts of complex cases, when it comes to judges President Bush and Congress want a judge who's less like Flounder and more like Dean Wormer — in other words, a good old-fashioned federal judge."

Also, podcasting will only get more and more accessible on both the production and listener fronts. Witness the Podcast Hotel Corante is planning, and BlawgCast, as examples.

Re: Podcasting - My Two Cents

I'm definitely getting older, and I'm clearly losing my edge. That's the best explanation I can offer for my inability to achieve 'tech-epiphany' over the whole podcast revolution.

I like the idea of RSS as a way of scooping up information on websites quickly. My newsreader is filled with thousands of posts from about 203 different sites. I'm not going to pretend for even one second that I read all of these posts everyday. But I do scan the headlines. If I see something interesting I can zero in on it quickly, which is nice. I only subscribe to sites that have 'full feeds' because I don't want to have to wait for web pages to load. That's the point of RSS right?

Well, not completely. Now, a new feature of RSS is the ability to download audio files (a/k/a 'podcasts'). These files are generally not small (average is a couple of MBs). Can I quickly scan these files to see if they contain information I want to assimilate? Sort of, but not anywhere near like what happens with RSS feeds of HTML content.

So are podcasts useless? No, not at all. Audio files are great if you are driving in your car. By contrast, trying to read a news reader while driving is sub-optimal at best. Podcast afficianados seem to like the fact that they can listen and learn at certain moments (i.e. driving, jogging, sky-diving) that would otherwise be wasted by only paying attention to one thing at a time.

I agree this sort of multi-tasking is a wonderful. I just don't happen to be one of those people who gravitates towards listening to audio files, unless it's music. But, for those that like on-demand learning, podcasting is a great thing. Maybe one day bar associations will figure out that podcasts are a good way to provide CLE content in a form that might actually make it easy and convenient to learn. Then, I'll really be excited. Of course, I'll probably be in a nursing home too.

Hopefully, Amanda Congdon's vlog/podcast will still be available then.E:

Podcasting: What Makes For A Good Law Podcast?

I've begun listening to podcasts and even participated in one.

The good news is that there's a technology that will automatically filter out all the umms and uhhs and coughing and sniffing and slurping noises from your podcast. It's called writing. [rimshot]

But seriously, what makes for a good podcast for lawyers? My initial personal reaction:

Two things to avoid are:

(1) horrible production values. As the CEO of ODEO pointed out, we're trained to write, not to record audio. Amateur production values can have home-made charm, but thoroughly unprofessional production values are unlistenable.

(2) inappropriate content, by which I do not mean some of Ernie's jokes, but information that is not readily comprehensible in the spoken format. A law review article that's hard to assimilate as it is, is not made easier to understand by being read aloud to you by a lawyer.

Things seem to work so far include: the give and take of interviews and panel discussions (as long as they don't devolve into Crossfire-like shouting matches).

Things we should lobby for: appellate oral argument. (here's a good example from IPTA BLog on Grokster).