Podcasting: Legal Issues of the Revolution
with
Colette Vogele
Vogele & Associates
CIS Non-Residential Fellow
Monday November 14, 2005
12:30-1:30 PM
Room 280A
Stanford Law School
Open to All
Lunch Served
Like the rapid development of blogging over the past few years, podcasting is emerging with light speed as the most popular method for distributing audio and visual content on the internet. Podcasting allows performers, writers, journalists, musicians, businesses, radio stations, friends, or family to produce high quality audio and visual content (podcasts) with relative ease, and then distribute that creative content with the touch of a few buttons. Indeed, all you really need to create your own podcast is a computer, the free software, and a microphone. Unlike RealAudio, Windows Media or QuickTime players, podcasts are proving more attractive than streaming content because podcasts can be automatically aggregated and downloaded by the listener, and they are portable -- which means you can take your favorite news program, radio show, or silly married couple banter with you wherever you go. Listeners are unchained from their computers as they enjoy their favorite podcasts. And popularized with the help of celebrities like Adam Curry (aka the podfather) and the success of Apple's iPod and other mp3 players, podcasting is likely to change the way we all consume internet-delivered multi-medial content.
While making and distributing a podcast is relatively easy, podcasters face the risk of violating many legal rights in creating and distributing their content. These rights touch on many related areas of law like copyright, music licensing, privacy, rights of publicity, and defamation. This lunchtime talk by CIS fellow Colette Vogele will focus on many of the legal issues faced by podcasters and introduce her forthcoming Podcasting Legal Guide, which is being developed in conjunction with Creative Commons. Come to this talk with your favorite podcasts in mind, and get ready for the podcasting revolution.Colette Vogele heads the small San Francisco law firm Vogele & Associates where she advises individuals, businesses and non-profit organizations on a range of intellectual property issues. She also holds a non-residential fellowship with Stanford's Center for Internet and Society where she regularly blogs and is drafting a legal guide to podcasting and audio/video blogging. Prior to establishing Vogele & Associates, Colette worked for many years representing businesses in copyright, trademark, trade secret, and patent disputes. She has advocated for enforcing rights as well as defended clients accused of infringement, giving her a unique and practical perspective on the balance (or lack thereof) of the IP system in the United States. During the 2004-05 academic year, Colette held a residential fellowship with CIS where she was lead counsel on two copyright cases dealing with aspects of constitutional law, the public domain and fair use.