Podcast Music Licensing Not as Financially Daunting as Bloggers Surmise?

[source] While the post is completely Ameri-centric, it's worth noting that all of the major rights organisations worldwide have reciprocal agreements, so this is probably as good a guideline as you're likely to find - for now.

There promises to be a follow-up, and the comments at the bottom of the article are worth reading for a fuller understanding of the issue - but this is a great place to start:

Licensing music for podcasting is a perfect example of how real world legal models must be reformed in the wake of emerging technology. As the Cyberspace community members' ability to create a podcast increases with time and technology, the explosion of podcasting is imminent. While many consider podcasts to be digital download, there is also the view that they are broadcasts, and as such, performing rights organizations want to tap this new revenue stream for their members...

Read the full article here

Converting video to play on the PSP

From webcast-l-bounces@commedia.org.uk; on behalf of; Bill Best [bill.best@commedia.org.uk]:

"There are tons of videos available for download from the internet.
Unfortunately, nearly all of it is unplayable on the PSP. Wouldn't it be
cool if you could automatically download, convert and copy these videos
to your PSP for later playback? Well now you can.

Enter PSPcasting. Automatically downloading video files for viewing on a
PSP at the your convenience.

http://www.pspvideo9.com/pspcasting.html"

Blog about online media issues

Darknet accompanies a book about rights issues and online media, and is well worth checking out for an overview of some of those issues.

O-Journalism: Free media storage - or free video and audio

O-Journalism: Free media storage - or free video and audio Online media site Ourmedia has launched to embarrassing success. They "provide free storage and free bandwidth for your videos, audio files, photos, text or software", but perhaps more importantly, "A condition of posting material is that contributors must share their work. Reworking or remixing content is permitted including the use of 'snippets' of copyrighted work, although 'infringement and illegal misappropriation' are not be allowed." The site even has RSS feeds updating on new content. [source: journalism.co.uk]

It looks like a particularly useful site on two fronts: firstly, as a place for bloggers and webspace-starved web designers to host - and showcase - images, audio and video; and secondly, as a place to find copyright-free materials.

New Music Strategies: How TPM can lead to DRM

New Music Strategies: How TPM can lead to DRM

Very interesting article from Bill Thompson about how TPMs - Trusted Platform Modules - which are aimed at making your computer more secure from viruses and theft at a hardware level - may end up restricting what we can do with the media on our PC. Key (lengthy) quote:

"Because the trusted computing base is also used to make digital rights management (DRM) systems more secure, this will give content providers a lot more control over what we can do with music, movies and books that we have bought from them.

"We have seen recently how allowing digital rights management services into our lives can lead to unwelcome consequences.

"Users of Apple's iTunes used to be able to stream the music they had brought to up to five other iTunes users, a great way of letting your mates discover your music collection. Apple has changed some of the streaming capabilities

"But the latest version of iTunes limits this capability, just as an earlier upgrade reduced the number of times you could burn a selected playlist of purchased songs to a CD.

"Another took away the ability to play songs downloaded from Real's Harmony service on your iPod.

"...Similarly, users of TiVo digital video recorders have found that they cannot record some shows, and other programmes that they have recorded are automatically deleted after a day."

But Thompson argues that the moves will not work because "in order for the purchaser to view the content it has to be unlocked. Once it is unlocked then someone, somewhere, will figure out a way to make a copy of the unlocked version. And once an unlocked version leaks onto the network it will be uncontrollable."

'Blair Witch' creator takes new project to Web

Interesting piece about Blair Witch creator Daniel Myrick's new project, with particular relevance to anyone interested in distributing media online. The world premiere of his new project will be available for free at www.strandvenice.com.