So you’ve decided to start dj’ing for your internet fans and want to show off your prodigious talent for selecting cool tunes. Maybe this will kickstart your international empire of cool. Except, you don’t want to pay anyone to play.
Before you get rolling, I want to introduce you to a little friend of mine. He is called “copyright law”— and he is ever so cute. No, actually, I take that back. He isn’t cute at all. Copyright law in the United States (yes, this is federal U.S. law) applies to creative and expressive works, which are most of the things that are included in a podcast. This includes, for example, performances, scripts, interviews, musical works and sound recordings. Under current US copyright law, copyright attaches automatically to creative, expressive works once they have been “fixed”, i.e. written down or recorded. Copyright law gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to control certain activities in relation to their work. Here are some examples of what a copyright owner can control:
