Pod-safe?

June 1, 2005 9:18 PM

I am preparing to do a music podcast and wonder about the required level of pod-safeness required.

I listen to a bunch of music podcasts. I would assume to be podsafe, the playlist would be totally free of major label music. However, over the past few weeks I have heard in the podcasts I subscribe to: a) the theme to the movie Barbarella; b) Merv Griffin singing "Chatanooga Choo Choo"; c) a track from The Grey Album; d) several tracks with very recognizable major label samples; e) tracks originally issued on an indie that were reissued on a major; f) tracks issued on on a major in Europe, but not in the US. All of these I would assume would be frowned upon by the RIAA.

Granted not all of these podcasts claim to be podsafe and some hosts like libsyn require you to be totally non-RIAA. My tastes run pretty obscure so I am not too worried, but I just want to double-check. I am not going to get a subpeona for playing Lee and Nancy or 70s major label Krautrock, am I?

posted by spartacusroosevelt to media & arts (1 answer total)

You might. The only way to be sure would be to only play things you have explicit permission to do so.

You can always just hope that when the RIAA inevitably decides to make examples out of a few podcasters, you won't be one of them.
posted by grouse at 5:26 AM on June 2, 2005