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Media
Podcasting: Making Waves
Sam Whitmore, 04.21.05, 6:00 AM ET

Just when we grasped what blogging was all about, along came podcasting, which in some ways is even more disruptive and exciting than blogging.

Being a podcaster myself, I've seen firsthand the business and legal chaos podcasts have created. As you'll see in this column, perhaps they might soon create some political chaos too.

Simply put, podcasting is the act of recording and transmitting digital audio over the Internet to one's computer or MP3 player. The "pod" in podcasting refers to Apple's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) iPod, but any MP3 player can play podcasts. Using a streaming-media player, you also can listen to podcasts right off the Web. Most listeners do.

Researchers from the Pew Internet & American Life Project this month claimed that "more than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players and more than one in four of them have downloaded podcasts."

That seems high to me, and many agree, but Pew stands firm. No matter. Podcasting is here to stay.

Paris Hilton will podcast this month to promote her new movie House of Wax. Air America, National Public Radio and Clear Channel Communications (nyse: CCU - news - people ) all podcast their programs, or say they soon will.

A new SciFi Channel podcast featuring Battlestar Galactica Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore gives a running commentary on each episode. Viewers can download the audio and listen along while they watch. Forbes.com, too, podcasts. Click here to listen to excerpts from its weekly radio show.

Meanwhile, podcast entrepreneurs jockey to make money and consolidate power. Boku Communications co-founder Adam Curry, a former personality with Viacom's (nyse: VIAb - news - people ) MTV, wants to coax podcasters into creating shows using Boku's professional-quality audio production tools, which they'll find at podshow.com.

To the extent he can empower podcasters, Curry hopes that advertisers will be inspired to shift advertising dollars toward Boku and its roster of audio talent. Says Curry, "Madison Avenue realizes there's an entire generation out there that doesn't listen to the radio."

Already there's disruption within the podcasting community itself. Most podcasting pioneers deplore commercialization--just as the dot-edu and dot-org communities bad-mouthed dot-com Web sites a decade ago.

Podcast populists, for example, promote obscure musicians by playing independent music not licensed by the Recording Industry Association of America. Others, such as me, use copyrighted music. Is this legal?

Good question. A week after launching my own podcast, Closet Deadhead, I traveled to New York and presented checks to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music for composing rights to the Grateful Dead's music. ASCAP told me I needed two other kinds of licenses: performance licenses from the record companies and a manufacturing license, which grants me the right to create a digital copy of a given performance.

So I investigated. Warner Music's Charles Comparato told me this month that his company's podcasting policy "is still evolving." Contradicting ASCAP, J.C. Lindstrom from the Harry Fox Agency--licensers of manufacturing rights--told me, "We don't have a policy for podcasting at this time."

Both Comparato and Lindstrom advised me to keep podcasting. I also contacted the Grateful Dead organization, which owns performance rights to Grateful Dead licensed recordings made since 1973. Chief Executive Cameron Sears says his team is crafting its own podcasting policy and will get back to me.

Podcast integrity is a bigger issue than licensing. And here's why. When you create a podcast, you create a digital file that listeners can save to their computers. Most listeners delete podcasts shortly after they download and listen to them. But once a digital audio file is saved, it can be reproduced as is--or manipulated.

Having downloaded the first podcast from former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, I used my digital editing software to make Edwards appear to say something ludicrous and potentially damaging to the Democratic Party. My purpose was to demonstrate how effectively an amateur can misrepresent the words of a powerful person. As of this writing, there's no legal language on the Edwards site prohibiting me from slicing and dicing.

If I can do it, imagine what the malicious in both parties can do. Existing licensing structures need to change and new ones created where none exist. Perhaps a "No Derivative Works" Creative Commons license might be appropriate: authors let others copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of their work, not derivative works based upon it.

So by all means, track the blogs and watch all those crusty old newspapers and magazines writhe in agony, wondering whether to join in or turn their backs. Just don't forget to put on your earphones and enjoy the new show, too.

Click here for a primer on podcasting technology.

Sam Whitmore is editor of Sam Whitmore's Media Survey, a Web-based tech-media analysis service. He writes a monthly media column for Forbes.com

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