This first ran in DaveNet on March 3, 1997.

Please read this sentence.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-

SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-

IC STUDY COMBINED WITH

THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

Count the F's.

How many did you find?

Open the comment window for the answer.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 10/17/04; 9:26:39 PM - --

Here's something I'd like to take a look at at BloggerCon, possibly at the journalism session...

Think about Jon Stewart's appearance on CNN Crossfire.

Wasn't he a customer saying he wasn't satisfied with the service?

Should journalists listen to their customers? (I don't mean advertisers, I mean the people who read, listen to, or watch their reports.)

Should they try to give them what they want?

If not, why not?

Would journalism get better?

Some journalists say they give the customers what they want, but I wonder about that.

If they were, wouldn't they have to listen to customers?

Comments are appreciated (of course).

# Posted by Dave Winer on 10/17/04; 7:40:18 PM - --

In 1995, BMI was one of my first clients when I was in the website building business. I worked very closely with them on creating the first internet music 'broadcast' license which we later used for some internet events for another client; Budweiser.

A lot of people have been questioning the use of licensed music in Podcasts and I too feel that the time has come to face any legal ramifications of this audio wave we're riding now, and not let it take us by surprise.

I am of course not a lawyer, but I think I can successfully argue that using copyrighted musical works in a podcast qualifies as a performance and broadcast usage. This is significantly different from what the RIAA is suing file sharing teenagers over. In fact, there should be no difference in taping a 'show' on cassette tape and selling it on a street corner to taping a podcast and distributing it via rss. These podcasts are creative works that build on existing work. Exactly what licenses are made for, so everyone gets their piece of the action.

So, in my non-legal opinion, podcasters need to obtain a license from two musical rights organizations: BMI and ASCAP. Both of these licensers have online forms available with different models, but most are revenue based and you'll wind up paying the minimum fee for both, even if you don't make a dime. Grand total is approximately $500 annually. Expect to pay about 4% of gross revenue once real money (>$1000) starts coming in.

I'd love to hear a legal opinion on my analysis, but if I'm right, we have a shot at making podcasting as commercially viable as broadcast radio.

# Posted by Ron Bloom on 10/17/04; 9:22:19 AM - --