New media sessions in Berkeley

UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism is sponsoring another even-filled new media week. The sessions will focus on multimedia, convergence and online publishing:

Monday, May 19
Doing Weblogs for Newspapers and Local News Sites
7:00 ‚- 8:15 p.m.
- Ken Sands, managing editor of online and new media, The Spokane Spokesman-Review
- Paul Andrews, technology columnist for the Seattle Times and author of The Paul Wall Weblog

Tuesday, May 20
Charging for Online Content
12:45 -‚ 1:45 p.m.
- Peter Krasilovsky, vice president and senior partner, Borrell Associates

The Daily Routine of Internet Users: The Day-Part Survey
7:00 - 8:15 p.m.
- Rusty Coats, director of new media, Mori Research

Wednesday, May 21
Online Advertising and Revenue: The Personal Shopper
7:00 - 8:15 p.m.
- Bob Cauthorn, vice president of digital media, San Francisco Chronicle

Thursday, May 22
Doing a Multimedia Project
1:00 ‚ - 2:15 p.m.
- Robyn Dochterman, interactive editor, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Friday, May 23
Putting Multimedia Into Practice: Deadline Stories and Projects
1:30 - 5:00 p.m.
- Rob Curley, general manager, World Online, the Internet division of The Lawrence Journal-World

All the presentations are free and no RVSP is necessary. Each presentation will be in the library at the UC Berkeley Journalism School in North Gate Hall. Directions are available here.

The presentations also will be Webcast live here.
The sessions are sponsored by the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and USC Annnenberg School for Communication.

FCC: Public Be Damned

The Nation: Consumer and public-interest groups say FCC chairman Michael Powell hasn't allowed enough scrutiny of the impact to to democracy from easing media ownership rules.

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

ONA conference set for November

Early-bird registration is now open for the fourth annual Online News Association Conference and Awards Banquet, to be held in Chicago on November 14-15, 2003.

As usual, the prices are absurdly high for any journalist or student whose news organization won't spring for the costs: $300 for journalists who belong to ONA, $475 for non-members, $100-$200 for students, with all those prices going up after Aug. 31.

The dullest blog in the world

The NY Times profiles a British blogger who writes the dullest blog in the world.

I guess irony isn't dead.

Why the RIAA loves tech

RIAA chief Hilary Rosen has a piece in Business 2.0: Why the Recording Industry Loves Tech. Forget what you've heard -- the RIAA believes technology holds the key to music's future. All you have to do is give that future a chance.

Court hears DVD copying dispute

Wired News: A federal judge listened to arguments Thursday in a lawsuit filed by Hollywood studios against a maker of DVD-copying software. The case could determine whether DVD owners can legally copy portions of videos. Katie Dean reports. Excerpt:

Russell Frackman, an attorney for the Motion Picture Association of America argued that the "321 product mimics and copies the CSS authentication," the encryption lock that is encoded on his client's DVDs, thereby bypassing security settings. The DMCA prohibits this, he argued.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it is illegal to bypass any technical measures that control access to copyrighted materials. The law also bans any technology that can circumvent these mechanisms.

But Daralyn Durie, attorney for 321 Studios said the court should take into consideration that the intended users of its products have already purchased the DVDs from which they are reproducing content.

"The DMCA has to be read to allow users access to encrypted content if they have the right to access it, if it is purchased," Durie said.

She argued that once a consumer buys a DVD, there is no license to tell them what they can and cannot do. They own the DVD. Durie compared an encrypted DVD to an antique, locked chest, explaining that if the item is purchased, the owner has the right to break the lock and access what's inside.

A fascinating -- and important -- groundbreaking case in the digital rights wars.

Search results clogged by blogs

Wired News: While many commercial websites struggle to be noticed, some bloggers are unintentionally attracting lots of hits. Their daily utterances, even on topics they know nothing about, are generating high traffic from search engine queries.