Thanks for tuning in to SPN’s coverage of The Podcast Hotel. I’d like to thank Travis for his work today. He’s been my wingman, doing most of the pix for the Friday and all of Saturday. Also, thanks to Alex for throwing a great event, and the folks at the Triple Door for the use of their beautiful theatre and zippy wifi.
Major Caveat: I tried to capture the essence of the conversations, but there’s no way I could convey all the context and nuance of all the panels. Please read these posts with a huge grain of salt. And please use the comments to make any corrections, additions, complaints, or whatever.
Also, be sure to listen to some of the roaming mic feeds from the evenings at Podcast Hotel, available in the SPN Podcast feed.
3:45 Alex: These statements seem to be written from a legalistic standpoint, and not to communicate in plain language to podcasters (who are smart and passionate, but not necessarily experts in copyright law.) Comment from audience member who worked at Real Audio for 5 years: Much of the copyright law we’re talking about is covered by the DMCA. Podcasters have a real opportunity to work with Creative Commons on new models that support small shows; if you want to make tons of money, though, you’ll have to deal with the lawyers and the big organizations.
2:15 Samantha: I was spending a lot of time online trying to get the music industry to take notice; 1 out of every 350 would respond. I heard about podcasting and got some play from CC Chapman and Insomnia Radio, and got more notice from the podcasters & started selling CDs. I started a podcast so I could promote my friends.
2:31 Tim: Podcasting has the potential for high conversion rates, nice from a marketing perspective. Ioda is looking at lots of ways to get media and buzz out online and turn that into sales. The traditional model of selling music is to spend a lot of money up front to market & advertise. So the opportunity is to lower the cost of delivering the product. There is quid pro quo in the business (buy an ad in order to get a review) that will taint the business and open up opportunity. Samantha: A problem of podcasting is the potential that artists aren’t getting compensated.
2:38 Dave: Corruption creeps in to any industry. Podcasting probably won’t be any different. Tim: Few people are making money yet in podcasting, though (except for Podshow, maybe). Samantha: If we don’t pay attention to artist payment systems now, the artist will get screwed again. We have to get involved with that now. Tim: Artists can still choose whether or not to participate in the podcast.
1:35 Comment from audience: Pushing out compilations is a great way to promote music, and this is kind of what the City of Seattle podcast is doing. Matt: There’s a lot of content out there — more CDs or audio files than you could possibly listen to. Find your vein, find the aggregators like CC Chapman and so on who are aligned with your sensibilities and who can therefore push your music. Corey: Music industry insiders are passionate about music, too. I want my choice, too; we need to give consumers tools that allow them to choose their music.
1:42 Matt wants more sharing, more tools that allow friends to share what they like with each other. Colin: When I see a billboard for a new CD, I ignore it; it doesn’t seem credible. However when I go to a blog and see what somebody wrote about an artist, that feels more credible.
11:22 Chris: AMP requires members to do more than 50% of the show as music, and that that music is licensed. Question from the audience to Steve: How does it work when you are using wmf files and I run Linux? Steve: We’re in “barbarian times.” We’re still developing how to do this. Perhaps you could use a friend’s Windows computer. Question: What’s the state of the market right now and is there a threat that the big guys could shut down the podsafe market? Chris: There’s still a lot of confusion. Things like Indiefeed are helping to build the foundation, but it’s still in flux. CC: Working with the indie artists and pushing singles is really working right now.
11:33 Question: Will major labels be concerned that an artist might have already released tracks under different licenses than the one that a major label might use? Steve: Exclusivity vs. Non-Exclusivity. Some labels are starting to deal with this. Weedshare has ways to deal with this. You could “turn Weed off” if you need to. Also, you’re the artist and you hold the rights. CC: Artists have to be informed and know what rights they’re giving away. Chris: Make sure you read the terms you’re agreeing to when you sign up for a service.
10:48 In response to question from audience about how the system works for folks who want to podcast particular songs, Paul says it’s a complicated landscape. An easy way is to go to a catalog service like Rumblefish (natch) and look through their catalog to choose music to play. Paul says there are a lot of different models and a lot of rights holders haven’t made up their mind yet about how they’re going to deal with podcasts.
3:29: Craig (speaking as a private individual) talks about his interest in journalism & the online world. Craig points out that the popular expectation of traditional journalism is that it will be researched & fact-checked before publishing. With podcasting and blogging, the popular expectation is that the readers will help fact check. One of the strengths of online journalism is that it can cover news stories that wouldn’t be covered by traditional media.
2:15 The mobile phone market is about 2 billion units and growing rapidly. Sprint just rolled out a digital network for cell phones that runs at DSL-type speeds. Bill has a Nokia phone with a 1 Gig chip in it… it’s like an iPod that’s connected to the internet.