Today's New Blawg

Mike Dillon, Sun's General Counsel, is one sharp guy. How do I know? For starters, he's off to a great start with the legal thing blog, which is bound to be closely followed by blawgers, the larger legal community, and aspiring surfers alike. (As Peter Lattman at the WSJ Law Blog writes, "As far as we know, it's the first blog launched by a Fortune 500 General Counsel.") And, he knows when and why to reject inordinately conservative legal advice and try a more creative and progressive approach.

I'm looking forward to much more from Mike, it's terrific to have him in the 'sphere. (Via the original Wired GC)

Frilinks

• Sure-fire long bet: there's an 85% probability of Doc being in airport limbo somewhere when unnerving events are going down. Glad he and all his fellow travelers are only a little frayed and otherwise fine.


• C.E. Petit on orphan works.


• Jeneane is right, this Viacom/Google deal is big, though certainly not for everyone: "The site owner will be able to insert a version of the Google video player that will display these clips. Programming played will change from day to day, to encourage repeat viewing. As a result, Web site owners cannot link to a specific clip - say, a certain episode of 'SpongeBob' - and write comments about it, as many do with clips on YouTube. Still, the site owners will get something YouTube has never given them: regular payments based on the advertising revenue generated on their sites."


• Secrecy News, Recipients of "Leaks" May be Prosecuted, Court Rules: "The Judge ruled that any First Amendment concerns regarding freedom of speech involving national defense information can be superseded by national security considerations."


• Laura Wood on Generation Pirate.


• From the Berkman Center and Digital Media Project: The Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material in the Digital Age


• TechCrunch, Web 2.0: The 24 Minute Documentary.


• Mitch Ratcliffe, NuJournalism: "[A]t the end of the month the size of a check expresses something, but not necessarily our success in being informative or accurate."


• CNET interviews blogger-behind-bars Josh Wolf.


• eWeek examines the possible legislative fallout of AOL's search data dump.


• CIO.com: "The DVD Copy Control Association, a movie industry party, plans to soon cut back some of the copy restrictions that have hindered the legitimate 'burning' of digital films to blank DVDs—a move that represents big Hollywood studios' increasing willingness to sell downloadable films that can be legally transferred to discs..."


• [Update:] Peter Hirschberg's Night at the Movies session from AlwaysOn Hollywood.

Don't Mashup My Tail With Your Widget

Scott Adams, brilliant: "Don't ping my cheese with your bandwidth." No surprise, he's a sharp parent, too.

I Gotta Start Me A Link Blog

And now for today's undifferentiated link dump:

• Macworld's two podcasts (thus far; feed) and video highlights from WWDC '06


• Out-Law on RIAA v. Limewire; AP re same


• Mercury News wins fair use victory re use of a book photo "for purposes of commentary or news reporting."


• Gilbert Cranberg (George H. Gallup Professor of Journalism Emeritus, the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication): "Some nations license journalists, but we supposedly do not. And yet a government official, a judge, after examining my published work, had officially proclaimed me to be a journalist. If that isn't licensing, it's uncomfortably close to it."


• TechCrunch's continuing coverage of AOL's data dump and its fallout; Declan McCullagh re same


• University of California joins Google Library


• Getting meta on meta on meta: Amit Agarwal covers the coverage — specifically, the headlines — re Dave Sifry's latest report.


• Marty Schwimmer on "official" MySpace pages for fictional characters: "False false endorsement?"

Lab Dance

Yesterday I visited the IPG [Interpublic Group] Emerging Media Lab. Interpublic is a conglomerate of advertising and PR agencies, and its Lab and Lab blog focus on "the intersection of media consumption, consumer behavior, emerging media and how marketers should think about all of it." I met Director Lori H. Schwartz and Content Editor (a.k.a. blogger-in-residence/25-year-old they're trying to keep of the streets) Jeff Berg, who discussed the impact of the Live Web on advertising and PR, and related legal considerations, for a forthcoming episode of Sound Policy.

These people are influencing the advertising and marketing courses of huge global brands, so I found it pretty fascinating to see who they're reading (Doctorow and Jenkins, among others) and what they're hearing and watching: as much as possible of everything that's available for any kind of device, and they're placeshifting and timeshifting it for all it's worth. They're taking red-line doses of Technorati and TechCrunch, and giving things like We Feel Fine, Pandora, and dandelife priority slots in their attention streams (which they're socially bookmarking to boot). Their exploration is (as it should be) a work in progress, and Lori and Jeff agree that the glue holding all this together is the power of genuine exchange in a human voice — and the fun of remembering your first cell phone, of course. (Full Flickr set here.)

Generationally resonant

Screen Play

Shelf Life