I knew the discussion would start sooner our later. The early discussion is healthy in nature and hopefully someone with some legal knowledge will weigh in. I am using copyrighted music in my podcast but I am cutting the recording levels by 30db and it is compressed into the track.
In my layman’s initial interpretation of the law and rulings that have taken place over the past few years. I know that we do not fall under the streaming rules the broadcast radio stations that stream live audio do. But the gray area is the fact that some of us are using copyrighted materials.
If we are required to buy the 2 licenses that some are saying podcasters that are playing copyrighted will need to do I will more than likely cut out the underlaying music. [BloggerCon] [Doc Searls IT Garage]
Update: With the heavy handed tactics of the RIAA and other organizations we have discontinued the use of having any copyrighted music even playing in the background of our Podcast. I felt the risk was far to great. Until someone with significant legal authority can tell me where podcasters stand we will use only non RIAA controlled music by bands that have given explicit permission for their music to be broadcast under a common creative license or freely distributable.