Copyright Law and Podcasting

I am facilitating the session on Copyright Law and Podcasting at Podcastercon on Saturday, January 7th. The format of the overall conference is an unconference. If you are not familiar with this style of event, please look at this overview by Doc Searls.

The session is meant to be a conversation among those present about the things they are interested in. Certainly we all have opinions on the topic if we are podcasting. One of the challenging things about podcasting is that there is in fact a lot of legal implications of what you do if you are playing copyrighted material. Although there are legal structures in place, there is also a lot of ambiguity about what you need to do to make sure that you don't stumble over one of these legal areas and expose yourself to penalties and fines.

Some of the things we may want to discuss during this session can be the following:

What are the underlying rights associated with copyrighted works?

Who administers permission and payments if you want to use copyrighted materials in your podcast?

What copyright protections can I have in protecting the intellectual property that I create in my podcast?

What is Creative Commons?

Let's talk about acronyms like DMCA, DRPA, DPD, and CARP.

What is the case law that has been established thus far in digital music that may be relevant to our podcasting?

What is Fair Use?

What do I need to do to play cover songs in my podcast?

If I am concerned about playing copyrighted music, what are my alternatives?

As the session moderator, I am familiar with some of the above topics and will contribute to the best of my abilities, but will only do so in a conversation with everyone present. I am not a lawyer. Hopefully there will be some of those in attendance.

The stark reality of copyright law and podcasting is that it is a fairly new area that has some precedence and some indications of a legal/not legal framework and associated fines. Making yourself aware of what those areas are, and identifying alternatives to taking risks in our podcasts is what I hope we get to have a lively conversation about on Saturday. Please feel free to join in the session and contribute your opinion and knowledge on the topic.