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 “Open Source” format fails to make enough money, it will become something else. And Viacom will still have the right to do whatever it wants with all those uploaded podcasts. Can you see, for example, a big budget movie about a young married couple who have a potty-mouthed podcast? Can you see Dawn & Drew not earning a cent when the movie comes out through Paramount?
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)