Podsafe Or Not Podsafe?

The following extract from the Britcaster Forum debate on proposed MCPS-PRS Podcast Licencing.

I have mixed feelings even about the whole "podsafe" concept - some of the best music i have ever heard in dance music especially, is completely 100% ILLEGAL - and superb all the same. I think it's necessary to maintain our magpie culture at grassroots level - as TS Eliot said, a mature artist steals - for it to be vital.

Once podcasting starts to seriously commercialise, gets easier, and hordes of talented newbies really start to appear, it will be a different thing altogether. people = money = which changes everything.

In the UK, Pre-Nominet, it used to be that in order to get a domain name, you simply went to the naming committee and asked for it. can you imagine anyone NOT charging for domain registrations now?

Legislators and "authorities" everywhere have this kind of scenario in mind with the explosion of podcasting and the whole citizen-driven media thing. there are so many people doing it, and vested interests everywhere really want in. look how much Murdoch paid for MySpace.

In the end, the one thing that can damage podcasting as it emerges is bad legislation. There is a lot of educating to do of those who would legislate - explaining for e.g. podcasting is not file-sharing, not radio, nor publishing, nor broadcast - and that so long as it does no harm, it has the right to be treated as a new and different thing, and to evolve in relative freedom develop its own unique formats.

That for me is worth doing and would be the primary reason for going back to MCPS-PRS, en masse, and saying to them, here's how we'd like to be, this is what we think is fair for the UK, this is what we think is equitable.

If we do it promptly, loud and clear, we might even be listened to. Which won't affect my rebellious and defiantly pioneering friends one iota, but which may make a lot of difference to the thousands of nice people who are all just about to show up and go podcast.

I guess we need to see what consensus there really is among UK podcasters on these issues. There is a poll here about the MCPS-PRS licensing scheme for UK Podcasters.