My personal situation is a good illustration of the complexities of podcasting.
- I am a long standing MCPS and PRS member
- I own my own label
- I own my own publishing company
- I write and perform my own music.
Despite all these facts, as it currently stands, strictly speaking, according to the Music Alliance, I am expected to pay their license fee for podcasting my own music. When I said to them "Only notified works" they replied "All works by members are covered".
In practise, they would have a devil of a time enforcing this, but quite seriously, this is their position, stated to me on the phone last month.
Re: Podsafe music. In a word - it's unsafe. The Podsafe concept can only continue to exist in a consistently minor way, which means that as a band succeeds, they move out of bounds so podcasters following this path will be forever condemned to dwell in the margins. The reason for this is that the existing collection agencies (Music Alliance and it's global affiliates) operate a practical monopoly between them. Ergo, to collect money from radio and tv and pubs and hairdressers, you must join. But, I don't want to be later penalised for having played my valuable part in promoting artists and helping to achieve their success by having this repertoire removed from my programs - it's totally unfair.
My understanding is that even podcasts dated from a "podsafe" era will possibly not remain podsafe and protected at the point the band moves into the mainstream and accepts the restrictions attached to the collection of royalties by the MA agencies. I know this seems incredible, but retrospective changes to licenses can and probably will be applied. Even the best kept records won't be of any use, should some stroppy record company decide to exercise it's rights on somebody's back catalogue. Yes, you can fight them, but it will be a very expensive battle, and you are not guaranteed to win it. In UK Law, everything in intellectual property can be bought and sold.
If I release music into the mainstream, I can only collect my royalties through the MA. This is fair enough - they do a decent job, they pay themselves around 2% for doing it. However, I also want the right to issue licenses as I see fit, to use Creative Commons if I want, to invent any kind of license for myself in the manner of my own choosing, and for that to be binding and respected and legal, so long as it breaks no laws. And we might yet find that the MA are amenable to this - but the WIPO are busy undermining
Creative Commons with the new Broadcast Treaty, and a new EU Directive threatens to make copyright infringements subject to criminal instead of civil law, so there are more unjust and potentially podcast-lethal restrictions brewing internationally that we should be aware of and lobbying to change.
And why are people accepting this artificial distinction between "safe" and "unsafe" anyway? I am a writer, not a DJ. I want to be able to play (as I am doing) breaking artists alongside established ones, for reasons of contrast and review. If I like an new or unknown artist, I want to be able to play their music alongside the greats, to show that they deserve the same recognition. I reject outright any system that prevents me doing this.
Re: podcasting licensed music. I want to make commercial podcasts which use the same repertoire as radio and tv; I want to pay a fair fee for this. But I will not accept any artistic or creative restrictions in my usage, and this includes my right to quote, mix, make parodies, mashup, collage, and generally mess about creatively with music. Why? Because it is a perfectly legitimate form of creative expression, enjoyed by fine artists, classical composers, street DJs, broadcasters, film-makers, my 13 year old nephew, and creative people everywhere on the planet. Without it, culture is stultified, and music, art, film, doesn't move on.
I refer the reader to the famous case of Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes.
http://www.artquest.org.uk/artlaw/copyright/dearimages.htmPermutations of existing forms are crucial to cultural enrichment, and making pirates out of honest artists has a long history of failure. So, it's to be hoped that dialogue between podcasters, legislators and royalty collectors finds the balance necessary to allow experimentation and innovation in this new cultural space.
Time to say farewell to my favourite of Crystal Palace's managers of the past ten years, Iain Dowie, who did wonders for the players' morale and fitness, and gave a brief burst of Premiership glory. At least the split wasn't mid-season leaving the team adrift. Still, it will be hard to hold onto the better players now, and I'd be surprised to see Andy Johnson still at the club this September.
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