After percolating for a decade or so, podcasts have grown wildly in popularity as a communication medium. This is a result of a confluence of factors, not the least of which is the emergence of a certain story about a murder in Baltimore. We are now living in a post-Serial world. And just like with any other form of media, there’s some confusion and lack of information about the rules of the road. All of which brings me to the copyright question at hand: can I play pre-recorded music on my podcast?
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Archives: Copyrights
Copyright Transformative Use Issue: Where Are We Now?
November 12, 2014
I’ve written about Fair Use before (to see some of my previous posts on the topic, check out my blog’s handy new search function.) The hottest topic in fair use these days is, without question, the copyright transformative use issue. What does it mean to say the use of someone else’s copyrighted work is “transformative,” and how are the courts ruling on this topic?
Can Graffiti be Protected by Copyright and Trademark Law?
October 28, 2014
As part of a trend, a recent lawsuit alleged that fashion designer Roberto Cavalli infringed the legal rights of artists Revok, Reyes and Steel when he used images from one of their graffiti murals on clothing and related goods under his Just Cavalli brand. Who owns the rights to graffiti images?
Who Owns the Copyright on a Monkey’s Self-Portrait?
August 19, 2014
When people ask me questions like “who owns the copyright on a monkey selfie,” I feel so full of…what’s the opposite of shame? Pride? No, not that far from shame. Less shame? Yeah. Let’s examine this serious, important, and hilarious issue. Photographer David Slater was in the Indonesian wilderness in 2011 when a crested black macaque used one of his cameras and took a bunch of pictures with it. One of those pictures was the amazing selfie seen above. Eventually the photo was uploaded to Wikipedia’s Wikimedia Commons. Slater filed a takedown request on the grounds that he owns the…
