[council] ICANN-LA DNSO Content to be Webcasted

["Ben Edelman" <edelman@law.harvard.edu>]

Names Council Members,

I thought it might be helpful if I responded to some of the questions raised
on this morning's teleconference about LA webcasting and expenses.
(Unfortunately I was unable to join the call, for my Tuesday-Thursday class
schedule prevents me from taking part in teleconferences at the 9:00 Eastern
hour.)


* ICANN LA WEBCAST PLANS *

First, it's not currently my intention to webcast the constituency meetings
or working group sessions.  If the NC told me this should be a priority, I'd
make every effort to do so, but since you all seem to agree that it's not so
important and indeed wouldn't even be so helpful (given the hour of the
meetings and the problem of simultaneous parallel webcasts), I agree that we
should not webcast those sessions.  Instead, I too am inclined to post
archives after the fact rather than live, just as we attempted to do after
Santiago.

(Note, however, that I don't think the Berkman Center will be able to
provide more tape recorders this time -- recall that we lost several hundred
dollars of tape recorders not returned to our staff in Santiago -- so if you
want recordings to be made, constituencies and working groups should arrange
details directly with the hotel A/V department.  Realize that the costs of
having such recordings made may be as high as several hundred dollars per
meeting; I believe you'd need several microphones, at $35/each per day, plus
a small mixer at another $35 and a tape recorder at $40.  For a four mic
setup, that's therefore $215, plus the cost of the audio cassettes used.)


* ICANN LA WEBCAST COSTS*

I didn't receive the message from Andrew that was the subject of discussion
today (in short, as I understood it, "webcast costs $27,000 ... DNSO's share
is 40%"), so I can't comment on its specific text, and perhaps that's best
left to him anyway.  However, I believe that his 40% figure refers to the
proportion of hours of ICANN LA meetings that are attributable to the DNSO.
We currently plan to webcast approximately 8 hours of DNSO GA and NC
meetings on Tuesday; other meetings slated to be webcast with scribing and
remote participation include the 8-hour Open Meeting and the 4-hour Board
Meeting.  Doing the arithmetic, that's 8/(8+8+4)=8/20=40%.  However, if in
fact the board meeting is longer than 4 hours, say a full 8 hour day, then
the DNSO's share of webcast time might decrease from 40% to perhaps 33%.

I should note that those numbers are simple ratios of DNSO meeting webcast
hours to total webcast hours.  But webcast costs might conceivably be split
in some other way.  ICANN might simply subsidize the DNSO -- not passing on
to the DNSO all costs relating to the DNSO, as I understand (but Andrew
should confirm) was done in Berlin.  Going forward, if it remains the case
that interest in ICANN Open and Board Meetings is higher than interest in
the DNSO meetings, it might be thought logical to share webcast costs based
on the number of webcast users for each meeting rather than on the simple
number of hours of meeting webcast; since DNSO's user counts are lower, this
would result in a lower relative cost to the DNSO and a higher share of
webcast costs to ICANN.  By mentioning these two possibilities, I don't mean
to favor one means of apportioning costs over the other, nor to suggest that
these are the only ways of splitting costs; they're just the two that first
came to mind.  Perhaps you should collectively discuss with Andrew the
precise means by which cost apportionments are to be decided on.



* WEBCAST COSTS GENERALLY *

On the subject of why webcasting physical meetings costs what it does, some
further information.  First, the fact that it consistently costs about
$25,000 to $30,000 to webcast each of the quarterly ICANN meetings.  Major
costs are travel expenses for three to four Berkman staff people; staff time
preparing the necessary tech for the meetings, setting up and operating
on-site, and creating archives after the fact; equipment purchases as
necessary; high-speed on-site Internet access and national/international
telephone calls (for backup audio feeds); and rental of on-site A/V
equipment.  The costs are split more or less equally in thirds between
travel, staff time, and equipment rental & purchase, with specific
allotments fluctuating somewhat from meeting to meeting based on changing
technical requirements, cost and availability of existing on-site tech
equipment, and other factors.

Re for-profit webcasters, the Berkman Center's past experience with
companies like broadcast.com has been that their charges for on-site
webcasts tend to be quite a bit higher than what's explained above -- on the
order of two to three timees as much for a simple webcast, with no
availability of anything like scribing or remote participation.  However, if
the NC is interested, I encourage you to check directly with Broadcast.com,
the Real Broadcast Network, or other similar companies -- and do let me know
what they tell you!  (For those interested: I think of myself as a webcaster
primarily to fulfill a pressing need at what I believe to be a low cost
relative to commercial alternatives; should I learn that others can do
webcasts cheaper, I'd be inclined to leave the task to them while I move on
to other tasks both related to ICANN and separate.)


* TELECONFERENCE WEBCAST COSTS *

Finally, on the subject of the continued charges for teleconference
webcasts.  We previously agreed to the rate of $100 per hour of
teleconference for US Eastern business-day teleconference webcasts, or twice
that outside the US business day.  You've now had one four-hour
teleconference outside our business day plus six two-hour calls during the
business day (see <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/dnso> for dates and
times), resulting in an outstanding balance owed to the Berkman Center of
$2,000.



Hope this is helpful.  Let me know what other information is needed.


Ben Edelman