Webcast of my Law Journal TV appearance

I apologize for forgetting to blog the exact time on October 17th when I was on TV, but the good news is that the webcast is online, so you can still see the show! The episode is called “Downloading Music and Movies Off the Internet: No Free Lunch”, check it out.

The taping took place at WFMZ-TV‘s studios in Allentown, PA, which unfortunately isn’t easy to reach using public transportation from Philadelphia. Fortunately, Stephen Meyers from the law firm Drinker Biddle was nice enough to give me a lift. He hired a taxi to take us all the way from Philadelphia to Allentown, which was a bit ridiculous (“A limo probably would have been cheaper”, he grumbled) but it got us to the taping on time… The surprise when we got there was that my cab companion turned out to be “the enemy”, the content industry lawyer! Really, I should have guessed, but he’s a very friendly fellow, and I suppose I expected the industry lawyer to be more evil 😉

I didn’t have to face Stephen alone, however: I found a fellow free culture advocate in Temple Law professor Donald Harris, who filled in legal details for many of the points I made. Honestly the balance may have been a bit uneven, since the 4th guest, Dorothy Bollinger from Fox Rothschild, was relatively neutral (and quiet), so it became basically 2 free culture advocates vs. one industry lawyer. Of course, since I’m not a lawyer (yet), I’m not sure I’m worth as much as a lawyer in a debate, so you shouldn’t feel too sorry for Stephen…

At any rate, I feel the taping turned out pretty well, even though I was actually seated all the way across the studio from my fellow panelists (which made conversation slightly odd, because I was watching them through a TV screen). I managed to cut down a bit on my “ums” and “ers”, and I got the last word in at the end! I said something like, “In a world where production and distribution costs are dropping, copyright terms and scope should be decreasing, not increasing, since presumably copyright holders don’t need to make as much money back to turn a profit.” All in all, I enjoyed the show, and I hope you will too 😉

5 thoughts on “Webcast of my Law Journal TV appearance

  1. I like how they only make their shows available in RealPlayer or Windows Media formats…

    *debates giving in and downloading Real Player*…

    • I gave in because (at least on Mac) Realplayer doesn’t bundle lots of other crappy software with their installer the way they used to when I used it on Windows.

      But your comment inspired me to send the Law Journal people an e-mail suggesting they offer a video podcast… we’ll see how they respond.

      • Awesome. For the time being, though, I decided to give in.

        Well done, dude. If regular news/commentary TV was this intelligent, I wouldn’t be so allergic to it. 🙂

      • Law Journal TV Podcasts

        Thanks for the info re: podcasts. Actually we at Law Journal TV– and the upcoming Law Show on COmcast– are working out arrangements so that all shows, eventually, will be podcast. I dare say sometime in 2006.

        Glad you folks enjoyed the show.

        Christopher Naughton
        Host, Law Journal Television

  2. My roommate (UF Florida Free Culture member J.C. Jones) was watching the webcast at literally 7:30 in the morning, which meant I got to say hi before going to class, and I got to see what all the fuss was about. The five or so minutes that I watched while scarfing down some breakfast was very impressive to me in the David (fellow student) vs. Goliath (evil lawyers) kind of way.

    I’ll probably be watching the whole thing later on tonight on my subpar Windows Media Player. My congratulations, though. I thought you protrayed ‘professional youthfulness’ quite well.

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