WombatNation

When I first read about podcasting music, or even podcasting talk with a little bit of music in the background, I didn’t think about the copyright and licensing implications. I also didn’t consider what happens when a podcast becomes popular, but the RIAA has shown with webcasting that they won’t stop until they have extracted every penny they can get from anyone who has at least one penny, so don’t think your safe just because your listening base is small.

Matt May and assorted commenters cover the podcasting and licensing issue well on Matt’s bestkungfu blog. Read Matt’s post for the details, but the short summary is that it’s going to cost you a lot if you want to include most forms of commercially released music in your podcast. Just for starters, the first song will most likely cost you more than $100. Once you get the songwriter rights out of the way, then your costs will be significant only if a lot of people are downloading your podcast. Yes, you read that right. You have track how many people download your podcast, because you have to pay these organizations a cut for each download.

So, what do you do? For starters, check out music that has been released under a Creative Commons license. Good places to start are the Audio section at Creative Commons and Matt May’s own Staccato podcast.

Matt’s article was brought to my attention by my wife, who runs the radio station at UC Berkeley. She said that Matt’s coverage of the issue basically looks correct.

I finally got around to watching The Triplets of Belleville. Before the film started, all I knew was that it had been nominated for Oscars for best animated feature and original song, was French-made, and was kind of quirky. I had absolutely no idea what the plot was. If I had only known just how quirky the movie was, and that the Tour de France was involved, I would have seen it long ago.

I absolutely loved the film. How could I not like a movie with a caricature of Jacques Anquetil and a cameo appearance by Einstein’s Field Equations? This film blew me away in a similar fashion as did The City of Lost Children.

Although ostensibly a French film, there is so little dialogue that subtitles were not necessary. As the movie was starting, I was finishing off a veggie burrito. This resulted in two mistakes. First, the veggie burrito wasn’t nearly as good as the carnitas burrito that I normally get at Taqueria Los Comales. Second, between the facinating visuals and the lack of dialogue, I found it hard to take my eyes off the film for even a couple of seconds to finish my dinner. I know this is a small point, but I recommend you not try to eat or attempt any other form of misguided multitasking while watching this film.