Tuesday, February 8, 2005 at 11:10PM USA Today, Radio to the MP3 degree: Podcasting: "Rundle didn't need the BBC or any PR firm to help him reach an audience. He simply posted his show on the Internet." Also: "'It's the Internet penetrating into the rest of your life, when you're not connected,' says podcasting pioneer Adam Curry." (Links added.)
Tuesday, February 8, 2005 at 10:35PM USA Today, Podcasting: it's all over the dial: "Truly programming by the people, for the people. No big overhead. No censors. No pesky professional standards to live up to."
Tuesday, February 8, 2005 at 12:23PM Matt Round let me know about this as he was hacking it together, and I'm excited to see if and how I can get it working with my podcasts: quoteplay.
quoteplay allows others to link to specific bits of your audio files (ideal for letting weblogs quote from podcasts). Using a Flash-based in-browser MP3 player anyone can play & select clips and create links to them.
Since I love blogging about specific portions of people's podcasts, it would be great if everyone would start using this immediately. Thanks. ;) Here's more from Matt on the subject.
Also, congratulations to Hylton and the crew at Corante on the launch of BrandShift, edited by the way-cool Jennifer Rice. It finds and unmasks closet telemarketing schemes — do you need to know anything more?
Tuesday, February 8, 2005 at 11:38AM ...it depends on what your definition of "license" is. From the Ask Jeeves/Bloglines FAQ, Will there be any changes to the treatment of feeds and blogs posted to the service?: "Bloglines, like any aggregator, requires a license to display, distribute and promote the feeds we serve and the content you post — otherwise, we could not provide this service. Bloglines' license is for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your content in connection with the service. That's it. Users will retain the copyright to the content they post."
Hmm. Well, not every blog aggregated by Bloglines registered with the site or accepted its terms of service. I presume that some (many) are there simply because users have added the feed. This is true of other aggregators too. So, is Bloglines saying it's relying on other licensing (like Creative Commons) for its authority? If so, it's got a fairly involved job on its hands making sure the specific terms of those licenses are honored. And/or is it trying to rely on something else?
Who's got a license-free blog and never registered with Bloglines? Are you included?
[Update:] Marty Schwimmer: "Offer a choice to bloggers."
[Update:] And a bit of table-turning.
Tuesday, February 8, 2005 at 8:05AM ASCAP Offers Licenses to Podcasters
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers is offering a license to podcasters for musical performance rights on their shows. If you don't know what podcasting is, check out the info at iPodder. The license allows one to play ASCAP songs on a podcast in segments not to exceed 60 seconds for a price of $250 per year for individuals who are not realizing any income from the podcasts. There are other license categories for those with some type of revenue stream. This is a big development, and those interested in this should check out the license agreement at the ASCAP site.
He's right, this is a big deal. I'm not sure it definitively answers the question of whether podcasts are the equivalent of Internet radio for copyright and licensing purposes, but it tells you how ASCAP feels about the subject. For $250 a year, many podcasters will probably pay the fee just for the comfort level (but ASCAP isn't the only consideration; see Bret Fausett, How to Podcast RIAA Music Under License). For those running ads or charging subscription fees, it will be interesting to see if the economics make this such a no-brainer; in other words, their fees may be high enough to prompt someone to go to the mat on the issue.
