I don’t know how many of you kind folks regularly listen to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code but I try to catch it every few shows or so and during my commute this morning I heard some unsettling news from Adam. Head on over to Adam’s site if you want to hear for yourself, the specific episode is show 275.
For some time now there has been some grey area in the podcasting realm regarding playing licensed music. Playing licensed music in whole, like a real radio show, is, and has been, illegal. While it took a while to work out the exact licensing terms, I don’t think there was ever a question that a podcaster, just like a traditional broadcaster needed to secure a license from the proper agency in order to distribute licensed, copyrighted music. Some podcasters did just that, others decided to stay away from licensed music entirely and thus came the concept of “pod-safe” music, music that is specifically licensed for play by podcasters (without the potentially backbreaking license fees that hobbyists like yours truly ain’t every gonna be able to swing).
Now there is a legal concept in broadcasting called “fair use.” Fair use generally breaks down like this: so long as a broadcaster doesn’t play an entire song or, in some other way, reduces its value for piracy (by, for instance, talking over the beginning and ending of a song or segueing it with another song) it’s normal not considered infringement.
The recording industry, in it’s infinite wisdom and desire to suck every single bit of commercial value out of the intellectual property it owns, has some problems with this. Some of you may recall some years back the controversy over “sampling,” the practice where an artist will take a small bit of a recording and use it in a new derivative recording. A good example (well, maybe not a good example) would be Vanilla Ice sampling Queen’s Under Pressure to create Ice Ice Baby. The recording industry had a cow over that one and now artists have to pay the original artists to sample (or so I believe, I could be incorrect on this).
Enter the mashup. In case you live under a rock, a mashup (also known as bastard pop) is like sampling taken to it’s extreme. A DJ will take two or more pieces of music and sample and mix them together into something new. For my money, the best examples of mashups take two or more distinctly different pieces of music and create something fascinating. My personal favorite (which we actually played on the show for July 11th) is DJ Mei Lwun’s Sweet Home Country Grammar a mashup of Lynard Skynard’s Sweet Home Alabama and Nelly’s Country Grammar.
Adam Curry’s also a big fan of mashups and until show 275, The Daily Source Code was a good place to hear mashups. As of 275, though, Adam has announced that he’s gone completely pod-safe. Seems he’s received some take down notices from various rights holders and, in the interest of not getting sued, he’s just not going there anymore. Sucks, but I understand.
What has that got to do with Service Industry Night? Well… As of today, our older shows are going to become unavailable. I don’t have license (nor is it likely I can secure it or afford it if I could) to play the samples I used to create our intro and outro music. Understand, I am of the opinion that our usage in this instance falls under fair use as I described it above, but, if Adam is correct, the various recording industry mafiosi aren’t seeing it that way. Could I win in court if challenged on this? I think I could. Could I afford to pursue such a case to victory? Oh hell no! And the salient point here is that it doesn’t really matter if I could win a case, so long as the rightsholder could sue me into oblivion.
So, just to be clear here: Service Industry Night is not folding. We will continue to create podcasts with all the irregularity and lack of professionalism that you have come to know. We have not been sued or asked to take our podcasts down. I have done this voluntarily in the hopes of heading off any potential problems. If anyone reading this is in possession of any of our first fourteen shows please do not share or distribute them: I don’t need the headache, folks. We’ll be going pod-safe from here on out, which will require a little bit of retooling and a whole lotta creativity. On the plus side I’m going to investigate the various pod-safe music sources out there, so you may hear some tunes on future podcasts (and thus less inanity from us).
Sorry if anyone’s put out by this, but I’ve got to do what I can to stay legal so we can continue to enjoy this little hobby of ours. Try not to think of it as the end of anything. Personally I’m looking at it as a new beginning. Here’s to moving forward.
