Amateur Hour: Nov. 2, NYLS
From the esteemed Dan Hunter comes the following:
From television (YouTube and Revver) to advertising
(craigslist and consumer-made TV ads), movies (Machinima), photography (Flickr
and iStockPhoto), and news (blogs and citizen journalism), technology is
enabling amateurs to produce and distribute high-quality content that people
want to watch, read, consume, re-use, and buy. Media and entertainment
companies are facing a range of challenging new issues.
On November 2, 2007, New York Law School’s Institute
for Information Law & Policy will host the inaugural Amateur Hour Conference
to bring together leaders in business, law and technology to focus on the
opportunities and challenges of user-generated content to traditional media
& entertainment businesses.
Confirmed speakers include Professor Clay Shirky (NYU
professor, and author of the forthcoming book “Here Comes Everybody”), Kai
Falkenberg (Editorial Counsel, Forbes Magazine), Nathan Freitas (Co-founder,
Cruxy.com), Heather Moosnick (VP Business Development, CBS Interactive Audience
Network), Brian Murphy (Partner, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, PC), Marni
Pedorella (Vice President, Intellectual Property, NBC Universal), Stanley
Pierre-Louis (Vice-President and Associate General Counsel, Viacom Inc.), Lisa
Stancati (Assistant General Counsel, ESPN), Marty Schwimmer (The Trademark
Blog), David Sternbach (Director Legal & Business Affairs, A&E
Television Networks), and Ken Werner (President, Warner Bros. Domestic TV
Distribution).
Amateur Hour follows in the cutting-edge and
interdisciplinary tradition of New York Law School’s enormously successful State
of Play conferences, which for the last five years have brought together
scholars, technologists, and business leaders to study virtual worlds. The
Amateur Hour conference will begin a new series of conversations about the
changes that the Internet brings to media and entertainment.
Space is limited so please register early. We look forward to seeing you at Amateur Hour.
For conference schedule and registration please
visit: New York Law School-Amateur Hour.
I checked, and the registration fee is a delightfully participatory $50.
The ham band
When I was in high school I remember going with a group to play a concert in an Elks lodge. The room was dusky and the building was a little broken down. There was a giant sign in the room where we played that read, “Keep America Strong. Ask A Young Man To Become An Elk.” The people there were boisterous and kindly.
Well, I think I’ve found the home of the telecommunications-Elks. It’s amateur radio. The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual is full of folksy, boisterous, exclamation-point-studded advice. You get the feeling that every ham is sincere and fun-loving:
Why don’t people just buy radios and transmit anyway [without a license]? . . . Because it’s quite apparent to hams who has and who hasn’t passed a license exam. You’ll find yourself attracting the attention of the Federal Communications Commission, but more importantly, you won’t fit in and you won’t have fun.
A long, friendly conversation is known in ham-dom as a “ragchew.” And this was my favorite part, about Morse code:
Many operators enjoy the rhythm and musicality of “the code,” as well. Aside from its utility as a communications protocol, it’s a skill like whistling or painting that you can enjoy for its own sake. Listening to a skilled Morse operator chatting away or relaying messages is quite a treat!
I have a very soft place in my heart for the Elks, and for the hams, and I very much enjoyed my day with the amateur radio manual. It all works out so smoothly - voltage, current, resistance, and power all relate, and you get to sit there imagining contacting other hams in state after state. “CQ CQ CQ, this is W1AW calling CQ!” the manual instructs, and I can’t wait until I get my own call sign.
A woman sitting a row behind me in the plane told me she was jealous of my studying the manual - she wants to get her amateur license too. She told me that she saw the latest Bruce Willis movie last night and that ham radio saved the day. “It was so exciting!” she said.
Keep America Strong. Ask A Young Person To Become A Ham.