It’s all over the blogsphere today: Infinity Broadcasting, owned by Viacom, is going to change the format of an underperforming AM radio station in the San Francisco area to all podcasts.
They’re calling it “Open Source Radio.”
Don’t you believe it. From their Terms of Service:
You also grant the Site, its owner and operator, parent company(s), affiliates, successors and assigns, the royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right (including any moral rights) and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, retransmit, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, communicate to the public, publicly perform or display such content (in whole or in part), and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, for so long as any rights exist in such content.
Translation: they can use whatever you upload to their site (like podcasts!) in any way they chose, whenever, forever, and you won’t get paid for it.
And no, you won’t get paid for your podcast being broadcast on their AM station, or on their webcast. Not a dime for helping fill twenty four hours of airtime every single day.
But they will have advertising!
Nice one, Infinity / Viacom: prey upon the eager egos of podcasters large and small by offering them a new way to get heard… on the real radio! But don’t give them a dime, even though your parent company owns Paramount Pictures, CBS Television, over fifteen cable networks including Comedy Central, MTV, and Showtime, Simon & Schuster publishers, and more. Don’t pay the artist for their creation, even though you’re generating revenue through advertising.
And think of this: radio stations change their formats like Michael Jackson changes lawyers. When this
Bullshit. It’s the old “you’ll get exposure” lie of compensation, and I urge everyone to stay the hell away from this scam.
(cross-posted at MWS Media)
Scribtotum
[...] I’m proud of the run — I played music that wasn’t heard anywhere else in the podosphere. I believe I introduced the medium to Jonathan Coulton, Samantha Murphy, Caldwell Shine, and a few others — or at least I was one of the first to play those artists. I fought publicly against Viacom’s KYOU and Nike’s co-opting of Dischord Records. I was proud to turn money my listeners had originally donated to me over to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, and to support Boxing Day Tsunami relief by promoting the Of Hands And Hearts benefit compilation. [...]