Fair use - what it means for podcasters

• Podnews’s article on how to use commercial music in podcasts mainly says the words “No, you can’t” in a variety of different ways. However, the people who wrote the book (literally) on 'fair use’ respectfully disagree: and say that “it’s not risky at all” to use music under fair use as long as you understand and use the courts’ interpretive logic. Their article may come as a breath of fresh air.

• Andy Mills has resigned from the New York Times, almost two months after significant issues were discovered with Caliphate, a podcast for which Mills was a producer and co-host. While host Rukmini Callimachi was publicly censured and removed to a different reporting area, Mills - who accepted the Peabody Award on the paper’s behalf for the podcast - had not, seemingly, been disciplined, and questions made of past behaviour. Mills has posted a full statement. Michael Barbaro has not yet addressed the fact that his coverage on the matter did not disclose that Caliphate’s Executive Producer Lisa Tobin is his fiancée, which is in contravention of the NYT’s Editorial Standards. He has, though, written to NPR stations, and publicly apologised for attempting to silence critics.

  
  Aug 31 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Meditation and wellness podcasts are on the rise, says new data from Spotify. The company reports a 250% increase in people listening to meditation podcasts, and a 160% increase in people listening to wellness podcasts. Where is my mind is a Spotify exclusive show which the company mentions as one of the most popular.

• Media personality Paris Hilton is to make a podcast. Former US Vice-President Mike Pence is to make a podcast. Actress and LGBTQ+ advocate Laverne Cox is to make a podcast. Drag superstars Courtney Act and Vanity are to make a podcast. US President Joe Biden is making something that’s like a podcast but won’t be one.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 31 2023

• Spotify has been hosting anti-semitic content, according to Joseph Cohen, writing in the Jewish Chronicle.

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• Writing for Podnews, Rebecca Walcott says that podcasts are helping Caribbean people during the pandemic.

• Nathan Baschez, formerly at Gimlet, writes a “post-mortem for social podcast discovery”.

• How did 2020 influence podcasting? Zainab Hassan notes that some categories saw increased listenership as a result of the difficult year.

The Tech Stuff - with the Podcast Index

• 12.3% of podcasts now use a Podcasting 2.0 namespace tag. 9.3% use the locked tag; a further 1.3% use both locked and funding. (This is based on a sample of 42,797 RSS feeds inspected last week. A week ago, the figure was 10.7% of podcasts.)
• Now we’re at the end of phase 2, person, location, season and episode have been formally adopted into the new Podcast namespace. Full implementation details are in this file, along with five tags from phase 1.
• How I Built a Complete P2P RSS Podcast App in a Single HTML File - this blog post discusses TailoredFlow, a podcast app in a single HTML file.

Aug 31 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

Tips and tricks

• A podcaster’s guide to the Clubhouse app (Resonate)

• How to use tone to connect with your podcast audience (Rachel Corbett)

Podcast News - with CBC Podcasts

From CBC Podcasts: Play Me is transforming the way we experience theatre by turning contemporary plays into bingeable audio dramas.

Sounds Profitable this week has Dave Zohrob from Chartable as a special guest: and a familiar voice if you listen to our own podcast.

In the BBC’s Friday Night Comedy podcast, a lockdown panel show with a difference: and a live audience on Zoom. It’s worth a listen to see how Zoom can work to provide feedback.