The Future of What Ep. #178: Licensing Music For Podcasts

While music consumption has pivoted away from piracy and downloads, the spectre of the past is once again looming over the industry, as podcasts become an even more dominant medium. Generally unregulated, most podcasts contain at least one musical work, that is likely unlicensed, which means that those episodes you’re downloading are really no different than the unauthorized downloads of the past. So, will the industry coalesce around a standard blanket license to solve this issue? Or, will podcast hosts develop a YouTube-like Content ID system to identify these unlicensed works and prevent them from being distributed? We get answers to those questions and more this week from Jim Griffin (OneHouse), Gabe Fleet (Attorney), and Tom Mullen (Atlantic Records, Washed Up Emo).