Podcasting and Copyright

Naturally, any time students work with multimedia, they want to include music. Because of the very public, world-wide broadcast nature of podcasting, we need to be very clear with our students about the limits of copyright. Indeed, it is easiest to just avoid copyrighted music entirely.

There is a wide range of music available on an alternative to copyright, the creative commons. While the creative commons framework offers a variety of licensing options for artists, we want to pay special attention to the "attribution, noncommercial, sharealike" license. Under this licence, an artist's work may be used as long as credit is given (attribution), the final product is not sold (noncommercial), and the final product is released under the same license (sharealike). This is just a summary; visit creativecommons.org for the full details.

Music Resources

The following sites have music released under the creative commons.

• Magnatune - A record company that releases all of its artists' work under the creative commons for noncommercial uses.
• Garageband - A website for independent musicians to show off their music. Many of the musicians licenses their work in the creative commons, but not all so be sure to look at the licensing for each artist/song.
• Podsafe Music Network - Another site for artists to release their songs under the creative commons. You must have an existing podcast feed registered with the site prior to downloading any music.
• Google - There is an ever growing number of websites devoted to creative commons licensed music. To find other resources, google the phrase "podsafe music".