Happy New Year

Happy end of 2006 to everyone... here's to an exciting and prosperous 2007! I anticipate some changes coming in this space in the first or second quarter of '07... I'm not fully sure what these changes will be, so don't acccuse me of being intentionally mysterious just yet!

I just finished reading the podcasting legal guide, Rules for the Revolution by Colette Vogele (download it here). While no guide can ever promise to be comprehensive, I think this is about as good as it gets in terms of covering the legal issues involving podcasting. For those of you, like me, who are relatively new to the universe of intellectual property law, this is a pretty valuable resource. Rather than suggest a blanket "all rights reserved" copyright tag for all of my client's shows, it might suit some to look at the Creative Commons alternatives, depending on the nature of the podcast and whether there are commercial qualities to the production.

A new bit of blog functionality to mention... you may have noticed this blog is a bit schizophrenic, jumping from election and political law issues to podcasting with little to no warning. For those of you that care only about one particular issue, all posts are now labeled so you can segregate out the offendingly boring issues with one little click over on the right.

Resolution time... I promise to post more. On what, I have no idea... I just promise to post more.

CLE rush

The end of the year for some lawyers means compliance time... many states require lawyers to log a certain number of hours taking Continuing Legal Education (CLE) classes. As a proud member of the Oregon State Bar, I'm finishing up my three year requirement with a few weeks to spare. If you are a member of the OSB or the WSB, there is a great free CLE resource at freecle.com. It is a lifesaver if you need ethics credits in particular. Unfortunately, there aren't any elimination of bias or child abuse reporting courses there, so the OSB will be getting some additional money out of me this year so I can learn about those (mandatory) subjects.

My holiday reading list will include Rules for the Revolution, the legal guide to podcasting. I hope to post a review in the near future...

rules for the revolution

Grand jury duty ends this week for me, so hopefully I can resume regular posting sometime soon. In the interim, I recommend listening to the latest Podcast 411 episode on the legal issues related to podcasting. Rob's guest is Colette Vogele, an attorney from the Bay Area who is a co-author of Rules for the Revolution (wiki and pdf version), a legal guide for podcasters. Colette is also launching a new podcast on the subject soon... I look forward to listening and reviewing it here on the ol' blog.