Debunking The PodShow Contract
One of this week’s podcast episodes of Keith and the Girl rips into the Podshow contract, and it’s pretty painful. And not just becuase of what the contract says, but because the viewpoint taken by the hosts is a particularly vicious ‘for the comedy’ tone.
Actually, back up one, if you look at the contract from a business persepective yes there are one or two flowery bits, but I can’t see anything that I wouldn’t expect to read in a contract from an organisation such as Podshow. So to hear the non-competition clause getting booted because it does what it says on the tin is weird. Naturally the show is flying round the podsphere and everyone seems to think it’s a hoot. Perhaps that attitude explains why there hasn’t been a grass roots revolution in advertising and monetisation of podcasting for the majority of indie shows?
Update: Some links: Michael Geoghegan, Paul Colligan, Beiber Labs, Ministry of Intruige.
I listened to that episode last night. It’s not the Non-Compete Clause that is bothersome. This is a standard of many contracts. What is deplorable is the assignation of the copyrights and ownership of all intellectual property related to the podcaster’s show to Podshow. That is ridiculous. And something that according to Adam Curry on his Daily Source Code, Podshow decries. That’s where the problem lies. You can’t disparage Big Radio or Big Record Companies for sticking it to the little guy, build your own podcast version of Big Radio and not be pegged for a hypocrite.