lowkii

I guess I'm sorta qualified to answer the "audio in podcast" question, since I work at a radio station that owns a chunk of a podcast network and my job as digital director falls in between both of those things. First off, radio stations do pay royalties for the songs they play on the radio over the air, but it's as part of a big blanket license where individual songs don't matter. On the other hand, we do pay individually for songs played via internet streaming on a per performance basis. For for instance, if we stream a song and 100 people listen to it, we pay for 100 performances at something like .0001 cents per performance. Licensing for podcasts, on the other hand, is entirely separate and working for a radio station doesn't figure in at all. We've done a ton of research and there is absolutely no way to license music for your podcast without individually negotiating a deal with the owner of that songs license. There is no ASCAP type license for podcasts, because of the delivery method (ie: they can be streamed or downloaded and there is no way to limit performances or track them.) So effectively, any podcast that uses music is most likely doing it illegally. Fair use is a potential possibility, but only if you are using the songs for either educational or editorial purposes. So if you did a podcast where you discussed the impact or composition of a certain song, you might be able to get away with it, but fair use is a minefield legally. Any copyright lawyer worth anything would probably not recommend using fair use as your licensing strategy. Essentially what this boils down to is that if whoever owns the rights to Take a Chance on Me wanted to, they could charge you a fee for using their song during your podcast and can change you a ton for it. You can fight it, but copyright violation lawsuits are pain in the ass to fight and you'd probably just end up settling out of court. If you think this is super interesting, this article goes into even more detail.