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Navigating Copyright and Legal Issues
Episode 3122nd November 2023 • Podcast Answers • LehmanCreations
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On this episode I talk all about the legal and copyright issues you may come across when producing a podcast and how to avoid them.

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Welcome to podcast answers. That's right. This is the show where I help people start

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and grow their podcasts, answering any podcasting questions along the way. That's right. We

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are back with a new episode. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody who is in the U.S. I hope you're

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spending some time with your families. And if you're talking about podcasting and you're

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thinking about starting a podcast, I can help you do that. I provide consulting for podcasting

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and full service options from editing to posting to promoting whatever you need to do with

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your podcasts. I do it. And so if you're with your people this weekend for Thanksgiving

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and you start talking about podcasting, because you know, who doesn't start about talking about

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podcasting when they're hanging out with their family? What else do you have to do? Right?

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I mean, eat turkey, talk about podcasting. If you want to start a podcast, I can help

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you podcast answers.com slash contact is the place to do that. Because again, I want to

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get everybody started a podcast because podcasting is fun. So today, though, we are talking about

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navigating legal issues and just and copyright issues. So we're talking today, when you start

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a podcast, there are things that you need to think about because you could get into some

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major trouble if you don't take those things into consideration. And so first thing we're

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going to be talking a little bit today is about music. And that's going to be, you know,

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you may be tempted to put things like ACDC back in black on your podcast, but I would

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not recommend doing that because you will get in trouble for it. You may think no one's

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going to be listening to it. And you may think that you don't have to worry about anything,

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but that is not true. That is not the case. You will get in trouble for it. So there are

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some ways around it. There is lots of royalty free music that you can use. One of the ones

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and that's actually where I found the music for this podcast. That's the, you know, this

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track here is actually something from YouTube music, not YouTube music, but YouTube has

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a music selection that they allow you to use underneath your tracks and underneath your

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videos. And I've been able to, I've used it for this podcast too. I am broadcasting this

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podcast on YouTube currently as I, as I do it live because I like having a live podcast.

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It's a lot of fun, but you can use YouTube to get some royalty free music that you can

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use other places that you can use it for. Also are pond five.com. I've, you can buy a track

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there. So well, one of the things that you have to watch out with the YouTube music is

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sometimes you have to do attribution on it, meaning you have to listen, you have to put

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in, you know, who the artist is in your, in your episode description. But the other thing

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to do is, you know, pond five.com is a great place. You can buy a track. I've been able

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to buy, buy a track for one of my other podcasts and you can just use it as you, as you play

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your podcast because once you buy it, it's legally yours to use as long as that's what

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you're, you know, as long as that you've been able to clear, clear that with pond five.

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There's lots of more different websites for that too, though. You can use epidemic sound

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and that's going to be a subscription. So pond five is used by the track. You go in,

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you'll listen to it. You say, Hey, I want to, I want to buy this track and you buy the

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track and you're able to use it with pond or with epidemic sound. That's a subscription

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and you get basically pay a monthly subscription. And as long as you're paying that, you can

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continue to put tracks from their library into your podcast and listen and have that

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as your sounds. And, you know, you can change that up if you want to do a different sound

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for tomorrow. You know, next episode, you can change that episode up. You change that

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artwork up from epidemic sound. And so again, that's a subscription, but it clears you.

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What you do with epidemic sound is you, you clear channels. So you say YouTube, I want

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to clear my YouTube channel so that that way they know when, when someone or YouTube's

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algorithms report it, that you're clear to use it because you have a subscription. So

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again, music is one of the big things that we have to think about royalty free. I would

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stay away. You know, I've heard things where people say I can use it fair use. I'm going

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to play 10 seconds of, you know, ACDC black and black. And I just would not do that because

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you're going to get, you are going to get copyrighted every time and you don't want

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to do that. You don't want them to take that down. And so you're definitely going to want

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to, to not use anything under the guise of fair use just because that's something that

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I would stay away from. Now the next thing that I would, I would warn you about is having

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your guests sign a release form. So yes, you may have your guests come on and your guests

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may say, yes, I want to be on your podcast, but then next, you know, a week from now,

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they may come back and say, no, I didn't really like that or I don't give you permission for

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it. And they can take you to court on that. And so I would have them sign a release form

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and that way they can, they are held to, you can take, that's a legal contract you can

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take and say, no, you've signed this release form that I own this media. You did, we're

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a guest on my show in no, there was no exchange of anything for it, value for it, but you

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were a guest on my show. And so that allows you to say, no, you've released that episode

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and what you've set out. Now some people take that a step further and say, you know, I'm,

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I will edit it and you can listen to the podcast before I release it. But for me, what I do

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is I have people sign my release form, which basically says anything that you've said on

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the show can and will be on the show. Now I usually tell them afterwards, if you decide,

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you know, right after the show that you shouldn't have said that, that it's okay to go ahead

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and contact me. I will edit it out as long as it's before the release of the episode.

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So have them sign a release form. And then what I would do is also on your own edit out

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anything that you think might cause legal issues. So let's say your guest said something

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that later when you're editing set, you say, I don't know legally if I should put that

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in my show because it's just some, there's just a little bit of controversy on it or

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it may come back to bite me. So like you as the editor have the right to edit those things

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out and you, you should, if you think it's may cause legal issues because you as a publisher

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can be held responsible for it. Now, if you are contacted later about an episode, consider

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it taking it down. I had one in one of my podcasts where a previous guest came in and

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said, you know, I would really appreciate if you would take this episode down because

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of XYZ. And so I considered it. I said, you know, I'm your friend. We were friends and

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I care about you because if I didn't take it down, yes, I didn't legally have to take

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it down, but I took it down because I care about the person and I didn't want them to

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get hurt over what was said in the podcast. Yes, they were responsible for what they said,

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but ultimately I cared more about my friendship. And so I took that episode down. So again,

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consider that it's not that big of a deal. If later you need to come back and take an

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episode down. Now be careful for what you say to in your podcast because you could be held

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liable for things that you say and liable is basically where you say a way that you

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publish a false statement and it's damaging to a person's reputation. So let's say you

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said something about a famous person and it was a false statement and damages their reputation.

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They can come back and sue you for liable. And so just make sure that what you're talking

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about, you can't be held liable in any way. Make sure that you have 100% true statements

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and don't say anything that could be damaging to a person's reputation, even if you think

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it may be true because you can be held responsible for that. Now the last thing that I would

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say you need to be careful with as far as legal issues go. And again, all of these things

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are coming from me. I am not a lawyer. And so I don't know what you can and can't 100%

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be sued on because I'm not a lawyer. And I will give you a recommendation on a lawyer

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that's good with podcasting in case you want to one or need one. But the last thing that

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I would say to consider is in naming your podcast. Don't use products or company names

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in the title of your podcast unless you are that company. So don't call yourself the Coca

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Cola fan club. Even if you say the Coca Cola fan club or the unofficial Coca Cola fan club

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or whatever, I would be cautious of how you use things in your name because those companies

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can come back and sue you if you are not the owner of that trademark, that copyright, that

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name. So I would just be super careful with that. And then also search for other podcast

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names that are like yours. Now, this is not 100% legal. You can still use the name, but

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be careful because make sure it's not copyrighted. So if somebody has a copyright on the name,

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don't use it. Like I wouldn't try to use something like maybe podcast answers or dudes and dads

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podcast, which is my other podcast, because it's kind of a specific name. But you can

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use things like let's talk or let's talk about it or real talk. Those are, but the one thing

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you have to know about those is lots of podcasts have let's talk or real talk or let's get real

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or let's talk or things like that. So your podcast isn't going to stand out because it's

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going to be hard to find because if I search for let's talk about it, 150 other shows are

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going to come up and those may or may not be yours. So you do need to be careful about

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naming your podcast because you don't want to put a product name in there, but you also

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want to not use a name that's so generic that people aren't going to find your podcast.

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So those are the things that I would say that you need to consider about when you're thinking

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about the legal issues of your podcast. And again, this is not a hundred percent exhaustive

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list, but these are just some things that I thought of about legally and copyrighting,

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you know, copyright issues that could come into play in your podcast. So with that though,

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I did say that I was going to recommend a podcast lawyer and that person is Gordon Firemark

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and Gordon is a lawyer, but he's also specializes in podcasting topics. He's a podcaster himself.

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And so he's very, very familiar with issues that can come up to podcasters. In fact, he's

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the one that kind of gave me the template that I use for the podcasting and released form

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for my guests. And this is a generic thing. He didn't give it specifically to me, but

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he had it on his site. And so I used it because I wanted to cover my basis on my guests to

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make sure that I wasn't going to be in violation and then have, I wanted to cover myself there.

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So I would check out Gordon Firemark. If you are, if you are going to be looking for a

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podcast lawyer. So guys, I was thinking about doing something for this podcast. Would you

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like to see this podcast in video form in your podcast app? Now I do post this live.

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We do a live YouTube video. And I also post the video to it to YouTube after the fact.

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But I do stream audio live in new podcasting apps because some new podcasting apps can

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show a live audio and live video feed of the podcast episode. You get alerted in it when

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your favorite show goes live. And for me, I go live a little bit early before any other

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app, any other place like slow YouTube. I don't start the podcast on YouTube for a little

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while, but I do normally start the audio stream early. And the reason I do that is kind of

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a little bit more of a behind the scenes look into that. And so I do start that early. And

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so I can do that live video also in podcasting apps. So if that's something that you would

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like to see, I'm looking for some people to partner with me. It'll be about $10 a month

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or so. And I can with doing that, I can provide live video while recording in some of the

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podcast apps. If you want to help provide that, get in contact with me. Hello at podcastinganswers.com

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because I would love to do that. And then I can, I'm also thinking about starting a service

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for other podcasters to use that they can stream live video to. So again, if you want

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to help me out and stream this video live on new podcast apps, $10 a month will get you

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there. Hello at podcast dancers.com guys. Have a safe week. Happy Thanksgiving and just keep

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on podcasting.

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Bye.

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Bye.

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You

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