Friday, November 15, 2013

Other Legal Podcasts To Check Out

I was going to make this list for a professor at my law school and I decided, why not share it with the world?

Here are the law podcasts I currently listen to. If you want to know about the sports podcasts or tech podcasts I listen to, I made lists for those this past summer (they have changed a bit, but not a ton).

General


More policy than law, but close enough for this list, I think.



Whether you're a conservative or not, you have to understand that these shows have a conservative bias. That means if you're representing a client, you'll have to think through if what they are saying is actually the law or what conservatives want to be the law. The Federalist Society also has event podcasts, a faculty division podcast and a SCOTUS podcast. If I had time, I'd listen to those too, but I don't have time. In fact, there are a LOT of legal podcasts out there, but I just don't have time to listen to them all!

IP


Actually, I just added this, so I don't have anything to say about it.



Finnegan is one of the largest IP law firms in the world.



This is half law podcast and half commercial for their clients. I've obviously got it in my feeds, but if you're only an occasional podcast listener, I'd suggest finding other feeds.



They probably don't want to be associated with "Intellectual Property," but the whole idea that IP isn't, well, property, seems to be based on some natural law definition of property. Humans invented property and we can make property rights out of whatever we want. Of course, I will have multiple graduate degrees once I finish law school, so maybe the whole philosophical idea of property sits better with me than the general public. From a political perspective, maybe disassociating IP from real property makes sense, but it still seems odd to me. Real property is not without limits. There are easements. There are rules against restricting alienation. If land were some easy thing with no "fair use" or "exhaustion" rights, then we wouldn't need to spend a whole semester on it in law school. There'd be a clinic for learning how to file deeds or something, and that would be it. Obviously, I'm on a soap box, so let me get off of it and say that this is a great show. It's less legal focused now that Karen is no longer at the SFLC and is at the GNOME Foundation, but it's still great and there's still a lot of great legal content.



There's probably not a lot I can say about the podcast without talking about the organization, so I'll just say check them out. They are a great organization.


This is part of TWiT. It probably needs no introduction.



Unfortunately, this is no longer active, but I've still got a ton of content to go through in my feed, so it makes the list for now.

Sports Law (it's true that this has little to do with Music Manumit, but might as well keep them all in one place)


Strictly speaking, this is not a sports law podcast. However, they do delve into sports law issues on occasion. It's worth keeping in your feed if you're interested in policy issues in the beautiful game.
SportsLaw10



This is great if you're interested in international governance. It's not so great if you're interested in US law.



It doesn't come out often enough for me to have a lot to say about them, but I have listened to every episode and I still have it in my feed, so that should tell you something.

Last.fm username: DouglasAWh.
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Thursday, October 24, 2013

The Rest of this Semester, Next Semester, and Beyond

This is not legal advice. Leave audio feedback at (512) 686-6329.

Expected Audience: Longtime Followers of the Blog

Well, it's the same title I gave over at Sportazine, but it's not the same content. Presumably, no one cares about TINT or Sports Law here.

The Rest of the Semester
There's about a month and a half left in the semester. I doubt Brian is going to get his trademark podcasts out. Unless I republish or rearrange my upcoming Sports Law and IP post from Sportazine, I doubt I'll be getting up anything else this semester. My courses are Patent Practice, Sports Law, Administrative Procedure, Technology Licensing, Writing for Practice and an Independent Study getting NEF up and running. Now, maybe there's something about copyright licensing from Tech Licensing or maybe there's something somewhere else, but there's nothing obvious. The Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress, so it's not an executive agency. It's not really worth getting into, but basically I don't know that there's a lot. Now, the PTO handles trademarks and maybe there's something there, but at the end of the day, I probably just don't have time. Aside from classes and the NEF sites, I'm also working on a compilation with blocSonic and Living Libre, which will be out in December.


Next Semester
This is the main reason for me writing. The announcement is that I’ll be living in Baltimore and externing at Johns Hopkins University next semester in their Tech Transfer department. 
I don’t know what that means yet for the Lawcast. I don’t know what I’ll be at liberty to say due to attorney-client privilege, but I’ll bring as much to you as I can. I do know they are interested in having me do some copyright work, so there might be something I can bring to the blog. For now, don't expect anything next semester.

Beyond
At this point, there's not much to say about beyond. For OSP and Sportazine, I can assume that once I get a job, output will be much like things were before going to law school. However, the Lawcast did not exist until midway through 1L year, so there's no precedent. Of course, I now have other people contributing to OSP and Sportazine, which was not the case before law school. There's still no one else really contributing to the Lawcast, though certainly Nick and Brian have in the past. My hope is that I get someone to write regularly on the Lawcast. If you think that person could be you, please let me know!


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Monday, August 19, 2013

12. What's Jazz Got To Do With It?

File:CascadeLivery.jpg

This is not legal advice. Leave audio feedback at (512) 686-6329. This show was recorded and edited using GNU/Linux.

Expected Audience: People interested in Jazz and the Law




mp3 audio | ogg audio | torrent

This week on the Lawcast we have something a little bit different. If you want to hear more from Robert, check out The Jazzcast After Party or you can check out when Tom and I had him on the main Music Manumit show. Thanks, as always on the Jazzcast, to Ryno for twiddling the knobs!

The reason it took so long to get this out is that I had to go back and put in some of the tracks because one of the channels dropped out late in the show. I didn't go back and fix the audio when Robert and I were talking because I thought it would take too long, but I didn't think it was fair to the musicians for you not to hear both of their channels, in case they had anything recorded in stereo.

I regret not getting this out sooner, because I think this might be the format of the future. We'll see if I am even able to do the Lawcast next summer. Brian and I discussed a bit about the future of the Lawcast on the last episode, but I go into a bit more detail in the most recent OpenSourcePlayground.org article.


11. Brian Clark Discusses UNH and His Role at the Lawcast

This is not legal advice. Leave audio feedback at (512) 686-6329. This show was recorded and edited using GNU/Linux.

Expected Audience: Legal Recruiters, Prospective Law Students and UNH/FPLC Alums

mp3 audio | ogg audio | torrent | unedited video




Part of the reason I wanted to do this series is because I see other schools with podcasts (American, Chicago, Harvard, Yale, Virginia, etc.)

Brian has written 8 articles for the Lawcast.

Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?
political science major in college


What are your plans this upcoming semester for the Lawcast?
part-time externship
Writing for Practice
Admin Pro

Copyright registration takes a while!

Have you thought about whether you’ll stick with the Lawcast after graduation?
Figure it out as you go!

What are some of your longterm goals in the law?
Stay in NH!
Start practicing business litigation and that may take him in into trademarks
public sector first

More specifically, what have you been up to this summer?
Clinic calls, intake interviews
Legal clinic doesn’t do divorces
technology transfer

What do you think of Mary leaving UNH?
Brian was surprised.
Maybe school is trying to branch out a little more.

What do you think of Sports Law as part of IP?


The correct name is the Sports and Entertainment Law Center.


  hard to talk about as much because no Title.
Just very complicated!
compared 


I cut out a bit about patents after the discussion about sports law, so if you want to hear a bit more about patents, you'll have to watch the unedited video.


With Life of a Law Student no longer in existence, where do you think is the best place to go for free additional legal materials?
some blogs: not a single source






10. Jessica Coates, Creative Commons Global Network Manager

This is not legal advice. Leave audio feedback at (512) 686-6329. This show was recorded and edited using GNU/Linux.

Expected Audience: Those interested in CC 4.0.

mp3 audio | ogg audio | torrent | unedited video

I apologize for the echo on my audio. It didn't happen at the beginning of the recording, so I thought maybe it would stop, but it never did once it started. If you watch the video, you'll notice that Jessica isn't wearing headphones, so let that be a lesson to all you would-be podcasters...always wear headphones while producing a show!

On the other hand, at least this time Google didn't decide to cut out Doug's audio while he was typing...because Doug didn't type. That means the show notes aren't that great. If you'd like better show notes in the future, please make sure you donate. Donations are sure to get my attention. Also, I'm always interested in getting additional volunteers to help out with writing, editing and promoting the Lawcast, so just let me know if you'd be willing to put in the time to make great show notes.

Alright, onward...

Here's the show Tom and I did with Jessica back in December. Before that, and actually, before Music Manumit existed, CC came out with the 3.0 license in 2007.

Big things:
  • They've made the language more "plain English"
  • No more porting (well, there will be some)

There are still some countries that have not signed Berne (though TRIPS incorporates "almost all" of Berne): Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, East Timor, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kiribati, Kuwait, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Taiwan, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu and Uganda.

If you want to get involved int he 4.0 process, the best way to do so at this point is to check out the wiki and get involved in translation.

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My Last.fm username: DouglasAWh.
Libre.fm username: douglasawh.
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Monday, August 5, 2013

Contract Law

This is not legal advice. Leave audio feedback at (512) 686-6329.

So, it seems that my snippets go back further than last semester. I took Contract Law my first semester in law school (as most people do). Anyway, as I recently mentioned over at OSP, there may be a book coming. I want to get as much of this out there so people can help piece together what should be in the book. Obviously, some of these need work, but the community isn't going to be able to help put the book together unless they know what has already been written. So, just like the last post, this is one of those as-is posts. I hope you can gain something from it.

This is the first of a two-part series. The other post will be on the sale of goods, which will apply to merchandise sales. Today will focus on contracts for services. A performance, a "gig", is a service.

Let me first say that Tort Law and Constitutional Law have been my best grades in law school, so if anyone has suggestions to improve this article, I am open to suggestions! Let me also say that that should be a warning to you if you are attempting to make this legal advice. This is not legal advice.

Contracts are generally a matter of state law, but the US Constitution does address contracts in Article 1, §10. "No State shall...pass any...Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts." From the Constitutional side of things, there are other property rights, but that's not particularly important.
From the copyright side of things, note that you can sign away pretty much everything in the US context.

Many people think a contract must be in writing for it to be enforceable. While there are exceptions (there always are!), ORAL CONTRACTS FOR SERVICES ARE ENFORCEABLE.

RESOURCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract

CASES

Righthaven v. Democratic Underground

OTHER PODCASTS

A couple pages worth at The Legal Talk Network (none deal directly with gigs or copyright)

Current Issues: Week 5 - Product Development & Private-Public Partnerships (PPP)

This is not legal advice. Leave audio feedback at (512) 686-6329.

Last semester I took a course called Current Issues in International IP. I thought perhaps I'd clean up some of these posts over the course of the summer, but with the summer drawing to a close, I figured I'd either delete the titles or release what I had written as is. This is one of those as-is posts. I hope you can gain something from it.

Technically, this week we are primarily talking about patents in the Current Issues course. Specifically, we read "A Typology of Intellectual Property Management for Public Health Innovation and Access: Design Considerations for Policymakers" by Antony Taubman. I think the private-public partnerships are worth exploring in music as well, and indeed the paper passingly mentions copyright a few times.

Probably the most obvious Private-Public Partnership (PPP) in music is that of music education. People will quibble whether in the US we really have much "public" in music education, at least from a financial point of view. Let me first say, that despite my parents both being music educators (one public, one private), I think math and science education is vastly more important than arts education (that said, studies have shown music improves math skills). Humans innately express themselves. Humans do not innately understand differential equations or the Heisenberg principle. Of course, this week is not about education policy, we already had that discussion and will again when I post my mid-term paper on the subject.

There are, of course, other PPPs in music and some of them are subtle. For example, many arts organizations are 501(c)(3)s and while this is not direct financial stimulus, the tax incentives certainly help promote the arts. Charitable organizations are a particularly interesting application of the "market economy." While the market apparently prefers Justin Bieber (who was #1 on Billboard when I started writing this post), the government allows a separate (not secondary) market for charitable arts organizations.

Of course, the government also "competes" in this market with the various military bands, but charities, such as the Netizen Empowerment Federation, fulfill roles in the US that governments provide in other countries, such as education and arts. I am not an economist and thus I am not going to speak about the market aspects, specifically.



Get in Touch

Music Manumit Last.fm group
My Last.fm username: DouglasAWh.
Libre.fm username: douglasawh.
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