iTunes Advice?

So Piley and I have recorded our first podcast, which is now listed on the iTunes store. But, with neither of us being ITS users have got a couple of concerns about getting our collars felt for the use of music.

Clearly we're just a tiny blip in the scheme of things, but, is iTunes as a platform, high profile enough for us to be possibly spotted by any passing trade who just happen to be DMCA PRS types - and as a consequence get busted for copyright, non-clearance or licensing issues regarding tunes played in the Podcast ?

Any ideas or suggestions on how we stand with the use of music in these things would be welcome? Or would we be better off keeping it local, and only posting Podrophenia on our blogs to avoid the dreaded DMCA takedowns..

A drunken interlude

Here's a first - my very first drunken post and bollox to the typos

Having been walloped with a DMCA fizzer this week - here's my thoughts on it -

Fuck'em the money grubbing bastards!!!

If these sleazy weasels are more interested in casting a sly eye over real music fans excited jabber about the music they love, rather than than working out why their shitty-no-hope-identikit-every bands have tanked in the traps - they deserve to sucked into the gunk and grime of their own sleazy, scabrous doings the penny pinching pricks.

When was the last time you read any band's biog' that mentioned how great the label or publishers were?Never that's when.

Read any musicians story and it's always the same story of early doors scams, stitch ups and record label rip offs. These are the same sort of crafty bastards that would willingly charge £100 for a boxed set of previously released material that included only one albums worth of goodies not good enough to release when the band were at there hottest.

Yet these same frozone-hearted Rushmore-faced fakers are happy to hound tune-atics for any spare penny they can squeeze and start acting the bully boy tough nut over some silly odd song business

Never mind The Bullies - I'll keep on posting unil the buggers pull the plug..

Do you want to see something really scary ? # 4 Big Blogger Is Watching You

I wouldn’t normally double up or duplicate post an item – but having received a blogger takedown notification from the good people at Blogpspot - and seemingly fingers being wagged at other bloggers on the same day - thought it would be worth loading up something I posted on The Word website here as a cautionary measure for any occasional embedders or music based bloggers…..

I don't know many many of the contributors and chippers-in to The Word website are music bloggers or blog-browsers themselves - but if you qualify for either category, I have some disturbing news for you.

I run a small piece of music based puffery , a strictly happy amateur affair in some small corner of cyberspace - so a surprise yesterday then to be on the wrong end of a DMCA copyright violation warning. It concerned a post (made several months ago) featuring a 30 minute home-made mix. Fair enough really, as the mix featured a run of high profile performers like Ian Brown, Prince, Talking Heads plus Blondie and Kylie bootleg remixes. There was no clearance, permission or official endorsement for any tune used - so I can see why the plug was pulled, and have no beef about this.

But here's my concern, this particular mix was posted around Christmas/New Year 2007, as a sort of 'end of term' piece when the hits were low and the blogs weren't busy. It's rarely been a point of entry on my blog, and never been a particularly popular page according to my stats. So how did it get spotted? By a belligerent blogger or perhaps some stealthy spy-eyed software?

Through a Facebook contact I heard of another blogger also receiving a similar DMCA warning shot yesterday. I haven't checked any forums or message boards yet, but wouldn't be surprised should reports of taps on the shoulders of music bloggers and downloaders become an increasingly common occurrence.

It seems the internet traffic police have shifted gear and raised their game. If non-leaguers like me are appearing on a radar at DMCA HQ and being trawled for copyright compliance, heavy hitting blogs and sites like Hype Machine, could well be going the way of Kazaa, Winmx and Napster.

If this is the case, fill your boots where you can, while you can.