Podcasting Law

Wedding Podcasts In Battle To The Death

Oct 3rd, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Podcasting Law

Weddings aren’t all faith, love and happiness.
There’s usually a bit of abject terror mixed in and something - be it the bridesmaid’s dresses, the flowers or the dj - from hell itself. 
Case in point: A rivalry between two wedding podcasters has devolved into a battle to the death - at least for one of the [...]



Judge Delivers His Royal Purple Badness A Fair Use Smackdown

Aug 21st, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Internet TV, Podcasting Law, Streaming Video, Video

United States District Judge Jeremy Fogel has delivered Prince, and Universal Music a fair use smackdown in a case that may end up reducing the number of nuisance takedown notices filed against people that share videos at sites like YouTube.
Universal had sued Stephanie Lenz over the use of Prince’s song Let’s Go Crazy in a [...]



US Federal Court Upholds Open Source Licenses

Aug 13th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Podcasting Law

Free content pioneer Lawrence Lessig notes at his blog today that a US Federal Court has upheld open source licenses (pdf), helping to build a case history for Creative Commons licenses that are frequently used in new media:
The Court has held that free licenses such as the CC licenses set conditions (rather than covenants) on [...]



Google, Viacom Agree To Avoid Media Privacy Debacle

Jul 15th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: General, Internet TV, Podcasting Law, Video

Google announced today that it had reached an agreement with Viacom that will avoid a media debacle over YouTube users privacy:
As we let you know on July 4, YouTube received a court order to produce viewing history data. We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand [...]



How To Use Other People’s Work In Your Video Podcast And Avoid Getting Sued

Jul 7th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: How to Podcast, Podcasting Law

The Center for Social Media has released a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video.
If you have a vlog, video podcast or post videos to sites like YouTube, knowing about fair use could help keep you from getting sued.
Here’s a summary of their recommendations:



YouTube Needs To Grow A Spine

Jul 5th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: General, Internet TV, Podcasting Law, Streaming Video, Video

YouTube has responded to a federal court order requiring the company, as part of Viacom’s billion dollar lawsuit, to give Viacom copies of YouTube’s server log files.
These log files are needed by Viacom to help it determine the extent to which YouTube has been used to distribute copyrighted content without permission.
However, Viacom doesn’t need the [...]



Creating Businesses Using Creative Commons Media

Jul 3rd, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: General, Podcasting Law

This is one of a series of videos by Frances Pinter and David Percy that look at building businesses based on Creative Commons licenses.
It takes a look at Magnatune, a digital music store built on CC licenses, and the company’s founder, John Buckman.
Creative Commons licenses are a set of free tools designed to let you [...]



Associated Press Raises Copyright/Fair Use Stink

Jun 16th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Citizen Media, Podcasting Law

The Associated Press, after sending cease and desist letters to the social media site Drudge Retort, plans to release guidelines that explain how much of its articles and media bloggers and Web sites can copy within fair use rights:
The A.P.’s effort to impose some guidelines on the free-wheeling blogosphere, where extensive quoting and even copying [...]



AOL, RealNetworks, Yahoo Owe $100 Million For Digital Music Services

May 1st, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Making Money with Podcasts, Podcasting Law

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York today made public a decision in the proceeding to determine reasonable license fees to be paid to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) by AOL, RealNetworks and Yahoo! for their online performance of musical works. Total payments to be made [...]



How Magnatune Works: Inside The CC-licensed, Podcaster-friendly Record Label

Apr 11th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, Podcasting Law

The Open Rights Group has an in-depth look at Magnatune, a pioneering record label that licenses its releases under Creative Commons licenses.
This means that Magnatune’s music is:

Shareable: Users are invited to share their purchased tracks with up to three friends, can listen to the entire catalogue for free via the website’s 128kbps streams, and can [...]