Platforms and Their Chilling Effects
The good thing about podcasts -- the format, not the genre -- is that anyone can make a podcast and distribute the programs. It is not controlled by a small number of platforms, and if you don't like any particular platform, you can go to someone else.
The bad thing about video podcasts, on the other hand, is that there is one extremely dominant platform: YouTube.
As Jason Snell detailed on his Six Colors web site, he is offended by Spotify's disregard of the legal concept of fair use. Jason decided to delete his Spotify account and stop distributing his podcasts on the platform.
On the other hand, he did make a decision to not use a clip of a song in one of his latest podcast -- even though he believes, and I agree, it will be fair use -- because, YouTube.
Jason Snell, Six Colors:
We aren’t playing the song, though, because I’m sure it would run afoul of YouTube and Spotify’s content algorithms, and we’d need to risk the argument that it’s fair use—and potentially threaten the distribution and revenue generation of our brand-new podcast. Nothing like having episode one of a five-part series disappear from the internet because we ran afoul of content scanning.
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Link:
- Spotify Opens New Front in War on Fair Use, by Jason Snell, Six Colors