Last week I received a series of emails from Glenn Gaudet of Podcast.com. Each email was specific to a different podcast that I produce. I followed the link to one of my podcasts on their site and found six sizable advertisements flashing around a small window containing episodes of my podcast.
I was more than a bit put off to discover that podcast.com is making money from my creative work, particularly since my podcast web site indicates that the content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-a-like license. They never once notified me that they had attached advertising to my podcast and never offered to share the revenue with me.
I emailed Glenn to ask him to remove the advertising from my page. He replied saying that he can’t remove the advertising so he’s removing my podcast. I followed up by suggesting that it’s incumbent upon him to check all podcasts that he’s listing on his service to be sure that he’s not violating any other Creative Commons licenses (or All Rights Reserved licenses for that matter).
They probably are, admittedly probably EXTREMELY little on my stuff due to the little draw my content brings. That aside, There are a bunch of online podcast aggregators that do the same thing. podcast.com, collectik.net, castroller.com, all aggregate podcasts for listeners and serve ads.
Yes podcast.com makes that the most obvious, collectik and CastRoller are simple google adwords (and CastRoller is now ONLY serving ads on the search pages) but the trade off is they are helping new people find your podcast bringing you new ears. I can totally see how people may not like it, I personally don’t care that much.
I think increasingly on the web, media and information in general is getting federated, your going to see “your content” moving all over the web. Be it your Identi.ca stream on dozens of Laconica servers, or your podcast on multiple aggregaton sites. It’s going to happen more. All the more reason to brand your audio, tag the files well with links to your site and keep links to you in your shownotes!
And in a interest of full disclosure I know Hugh McGuire who runs Collectik and I’m good friends with Will Sapetzel and have consulted and beta tested for CastRoller.
Comment by Bill Deys — October 14, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
As the developer of my own online Podcast aggregator/directory I’ve wondered how to deal with the same problem. I currently do not have any advertising on the site at all, but do plan to add some in the future.
I am always careful to include lots of links back to the podcaster’s home page so that people can see the content at its original location. I feel that the site exists purely to help people consume the podcaster’s original content, so I don’t want to take anything away from the podcaster.
Now, I also want the option to make some money off of the site that I’ve built. I’m sure there is a line as to how much advertising is appropriate, obviously in this case, Podcast.com has crossed the line.
So the question is, how much advertising is too much? Can a directory include any advertising at all?
Comment by Will Spaetzel — October 14, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
I don’t want to rationalize the CastRoller or Collectik models. However, two things do come to mind. First, Google ads are small and unobtrusive where podcast.com is blatant, large and flashy — they advertise in your face and deliver the message up front. Second, CastRoller and Collectik have limited themselves to a single advertiser where podcast.com has gone whole hog with the available space, putting advertising first, content second.
It’s easy to get put off by one approach and be accepting of another simply by the message sent by the directory’s owner. While I should probably be excited about the models put together by Hugh and William, I find them to be far more palatable and I can forgive their approach. It’s a total double standard, I know. It just feels like CastRoller and Collectik promote podcasts and podcast.com promotes advertisers.
Comment by Mark — October 14, 2008 @ 2:58 pm
Are aggregators slapping audio ads onto front & back of their scooped up content? That thought gives me the heebeejeebies
Comment by Andrea — October 17, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
I don’t know of any that are adding pre- and post-roll at this time. However, the technology exists for that to happen.
Comment by Mark — October 17, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
I haven’t heard about any aggregators doing that. And I really don’t see how anyone would stand for having extra ads injected into their content.
Consumers would just go elsewhere and podcasters would be up in arms having the site directly modifying their content.
Comment by Will Spaetzel — October 17, 2008 @ 2:13 pm
I agree that consumers wouldn’t stand for it. The question is if they’re slapping a collection of ads on the page that serves the content (for which attribution is loosely applied if at all), what’s really stopping redistribution sites from attaching ads to the content itself?
Comment by Mark — October 17, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
[...] podcast.com making money from your podcast? (Mark’s blog post) audio comment from Daniele Rossi web comment from Bill Deys more discussion can be found [...]
Pingback by Canadian Podcast Buffet » 116: London Free-Press, Podcast Fee-Press and Near-Death Experiences — October 18, 2008 @ 10:38 pm
[...] Creative Commons is conducting a study of what ‘non-commercial use’ of a creative work means to people. I was involved in a discussion on this topic some time ago when Bob Goyetche and I learned that podcast.com was applying advertising to our our content on their site (see Is podcast.com making money from your podcast). [...]
Pingback by What does ‘non-commercial use’ mean to you? — December 4, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
I don't want to rationalize the CastRoller or Collectik models. However, two things do come to mind. First, Google ads are small and unobtrusive where podcast.com is blatant, large and flashy — they advertise in your face and deliver the message up front. Second, CastRoller and Collectik have limited themselves to a single advertiser where podcast.com has gone whole hog with the available space, putting advertising first, content second.
It's easy to get put off by one approach and be accepting of another simply by the message sent by the directory's owner. While I should probably be excited about the models put together by Hugh and William, I find them to be far more palatable and I can forgive their approach. It's a total double standard, I know. It just feels like CastRoller and Collectik promote podcasts and podcast.com promotes advertisers.
Comment by Mark — December 31, 2009 @ 3:05 am