Podsafe Music Network - Philanthropy or Profit Machine?
I've been watching the development of the Podsafe Music Network (PMN) with much interest ever since I got a bulk e-mail from C.C Chapman telling me that he just kicked it off as an off-shoot from Adam Curry's Podshow Network. I was initially dubious about the 'value proposition'. C.C stated it this way:
'Right now artists have to scour the web, send e-mails and play a lot of back and forth. Podcasters have to search the net, send e-mails or just take music that they don't have permission for to play on their podcasts. We want to stop all that.'
Noble stuff. I have 2 problems with it. One, I quite like scouring the net for free and legal MP3s. Two, what's in it for the PMN? Point one - it's very, very easy to find free stuff out there and I told C.C. He said that you can't play music from those sites on podcasts. That was news to me so I did some more digging around. A lot of the music I find is covered by the Creative Commons Licence and usually the main requirement is that you don't modify the content and that you don't FINANCIALLY PROFIT from material. I certainly don't make any money out of NYUB and I never intend to. Serving costs are low and it's a hobby, not a business. But what about the PMN? I assume it has a profit objective. I can't predict where all this is leading but I am concerned that unsigned artists will eventually submit their music for someone else to make a profit out of it which is not always transparent.
So what are your alternatives if you want free music?
- www.garageband.com
- www.download.com
- www.smart-music.net
- www.ipod-music.de
- www.insound.com
- www.salon.com
- www.amazon.com
and many more MP3 blogs. All the material may not be covered by a Creative Commons Licence but if the material has been released into the public domain by the artist and you make sure that you don't modify or make a profit from the recording, then you're pretty much safe to put it in your show.
What do you do if you're an artist and you don't want to use PMN? Go to the friendly folks at the Association of Music Podcasting and submit your music there or just mail some of the bigger music podcasts out there by visiting the Podcast Alley and checking out their top music podcasts.
MK
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Reader Comments (4)
And, I'd like to add, I enjoy having the interaction with artists, requesting permission, etc. It adds a great quality to this hobby.
Take care man.
I enjoyed the fact that you built a relationship with the Errorplains, because of that, I received personal emails from them and they also commented on my myspace account. I don't think that would have happened had you just pick someone randomly off PMN.
I just did a "non-scientific" test as I don't get any traffic from the site. I did 250 clicks on the front page of PMN to see if my podcast came up. The results:
First off, the featured podcast rotates between just 8 podcasts, all members of the "inner-circle". Tartan, acc. hash, Scene Zine, Big M Extra Super Action,Indie cast, DSC (of course), Band Trax, and In over Your Head.
In the "Other Podcasts" section below where things are suposed to be random (I figured the featured section would be also) My show did not show up once in 250 clicks, however, 14 showed up twice, 4 showed up three times, and2 showed up four times. There were probably more but I was sticking to watching the casts that I am familiar with.
Not very inspiring results. I am seriously thinking of confronting C.C. with these numbers and asking how their system is set up. I also want to know why only those 8 casts are evr in the featured section. If it is a payment or something they should be required to state that. If it is preferential treatment, then that is just plain wrong.
Love you show! Keep up the great job.