Is Your Podcast Legal?

Want to know if it's okay to use a sample or snippet of a copyrighted recording? Want to know how to protect your own podcast from someone else's sampling or use? Check out the Podcasting Legal Guide:

Welcome To The Podcasting Legal Guide - CcWiki

Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works, has the legal guide posted on their website.

As Lawrence Lessig says in his introduction to the guide: "Federal law regulates creativity. That regulation is insanely complex. Indeed, the law is more complex today than at any point in our history. It seems the more the lawyers work on the law, the less useable the law becomes."

Lessig is a professor at Stanford Law School, and has written numerous articles and books relating to the 'net, copyright, creativity and more.

On my podcast, the Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon Show, I rarely stray into any gray areas - I'd rather not have to do that dance to determine if the copyright lawyers are going to eventually jump my bones and ask for their piece of the pie - which would probably put me out of business. But if you, as a podcaster, find yourself treading that path, the legal guide is a damn good thing to know about.