Podcasting, Rights and Music – UKPA Event at Guardian Audio, London, March 29th 2008

UKPA is hosting a seminar on rights with the Open Rights Group at the Guardian, Farringdon, London, Saturday March 29th 2pm – 5pm and it would be great if you would come and take part.

Becky Hogge and Matt Wells (heads of ORG and Guardian Audio respectively) will be there, as well as representatives from MCPS-PRS and AIM (Association of Independent Music).

ORG will discuss how the EU AVMS Directive could impact negatively upon podcasting (if we let it) and generally explain the current issues facing podcasters as they see them. In the second session, we’ll cover new developments in music and podcasting.

There will be an opportunity afterwards to eat, drink and socialise at a local pub.

Attendance is strictly limited to 50, and places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Sorry but due to security, no tickets are available “on the door” – all places must be booked in advance by March 22nd 2008.

This event is free to UKPA and ORG members.

Please book early to secure your place.

VENUE ADDRESS:

The Scott Room, 60 Faringdon Road, EC1R 3GA – directly opposite 119 Farringdon Road (main Guardian building)
Reception: 020 7886 9890

UKPA Contact number: 0870 919 2807

UKPA Event Email: events [at] ukpa [dot] info

Hope to see you there.

New UKPA Membership Rates 2008

New UK Podcasters Association rates as from Jan 1st 2008:

Basic membership: Free

Full membership: £3 pcm, £36 per year

Corporate 1 (turnover up to £100,000 p.a.): £120 per year

Corporate 2 (turnover over £100,000 p.a.): £250 per year

The new Corporate 2 tier has been arrived at in discussion with members and prospective members because of the growing number of larger companies now joining the UKPA.

NB: Joining at this level does not confer any more rights – it’s still one membership, one vote – but it does give the non-profit organisation more resources to look out for its members’ interests.

All of the work members do for UKPA is unpaid and voluntary.

Social Media Café

There is a new initiative afoot to try and bring a new, physical space to the UK, the Social Media Café.

UKPA member Lloyd Davis discusses what it is and how he hopes it will work in the UKPA podcast.

Open Rights Group

Back in April 2006 when the UK Podcasters Association started, we were given advice and support by the Open Rights Group.

As a new organisation, we needed all the help we could get, and ORG gave it. Their intelligence enabled us to go into high-level meetings confidently, fully aware of our rights, and with developed strategies. Since then we have worked with ORG and the EFF to keep podcasting free from bad legislation and heavy-handed regulation.

As ORG celebrates its second birthday, please consider joining, or donating.

Guardian Unlimited Joins UKPA

Another major media corporation has joined the UK Podcasters Association – Guardian Unlimited. At the same time, they have joined the Radio Academy, strongly signifying their further ambitions in the area.

Head of audio Matt Wells said:

“We are now a significant force in quality speech programming, with hundreds of thousands of downloads a week. For the first time, the BBC has a serious rival in this area. It makes sense to have a seat at the top table at the leading radio industry organisation, and also to be a major player in the only body that represents podcast producers in the UK.”

The Guardian’s audio department produces Football Weekly, one of the popular football podcasts in the UK; a daily news show, Newsdesk; Media Talk and other specialist weekly shows, and the award-winning Muslim podcast Islamophonic.

Dean Whitbread, Chair of UKPA, said:

“UKPA is pleased that Guardian Unlimited has joined our organisation, the first major publisher to do so.

With a strong tradition of liberality and independence, Guardian Unlimited considerably adds to our presence and gravitas in the online media rights space. We now represent a truly diverse grouping of professional individuals, companies and media corporations, as well as passionate, unpaid enthusiasts, and our strength is our ability to speak up for all those involved in online media.

Our key roles remain to promote and protect the UK community’s interests across
the fascinating and dynamic emerging online media landscape.”

GCap Media Joins UKPA

Commercial radio giant, GCap Media, operators of radio stations such as Capital Radio, Xfm and Classic FM has joined UK Podcasters Association, in a move that spearheads the radio industry’s integration with digital and online media. GCap is the first radio/media company to join the UKPA, which has been attracting broadcast professionals since it started in April 2006.

The move by GCap Media, who produce more podcasts than any other media company in the UK, is recognition of the role podcasts are playing in the modern media landscape.

Speaking about GCap Media joining the UKPA, Chairman Dean Whitbread said:

“This is a major endorsement of the UKPA’s work and status as the leading body to establish podcasters’ rights. The UKPA represents its members’ interests to regulators and would-be legislators. We’ve done a lot of work to establish podcasting as a medium in itself and we are really pleased to welcome GCap as a prominent member from the radio industry. It shows that they recognise both the value of the Association and the importance of podcasting. This can only be good for all.”

John Hirst, Head of GCap’s podcasting company, Creation, said:

“Over the past three years we have seen millions of consumers subscribing and downloading compelling podcasts from our radio stations and our customers’ websites. We create podcasts for our radio brands, our commercial clients and other third party customers, such as The Sun. It’s now part of our core business and content offering to consumers and commercial customers alike. We are delighted to join the UKPA as it’s a neutral body set-up to support all podcasters.”

Podcamp UK

One month to go until the nation’s first PodCamp, September 1/2 2007 at Birmingham NTI many UKPA members will be there, so make sure you’re with them. Here’s the blurb:

PodCampUK is a two-day event bringing all the excitement and ideas and energy of a PodCamp to the UK for the first time. This unique event promises to be a brilliant mix of ideas, LIVE music, FREE food, great people and much more.

PodCamps are meetups for anyone interested in New Media. The first PodCamp was held in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2006, and they are now spreading across the globe, enabling culture, commerce and connections.

The “Pod” in PodCamp comes from podcasting; but you can expect to find anyone at PodCamp, podcasters, video makers, software developers, entrepreneurs, journalists, musicians, social networkers, marketers, producers, publishers, PR firms, educators, actors, writers, boys, broadcasters, girls and Web 2.0 gurus, all using the internet to communicate with shared media.

Some are beginners, some are experts, but all are enthused by what they are doing, redefining the old media landscape and defining a brand new culture.

PodCamp UK is a free event, an open door on new media, organised by volunteers who have all experienced Podcamps elsewhere in the world. To pay for the venue for two days with food for all attendees, we now have sponsorship from UK businesses Cheeze, Podcast Nation, and Digital Central. Nick Saalfeld from Wells Park has very kindly offered to pick up the refreshments & Jeff Pulver has put a tab behind the bar for the Saturday night social.

This is a FIRST – media coverage is bound to increase as we draw nearer to the first weekend in September. Please contact us if you are interested in joining our sponsors, and helping to make Podcamp UK a truly special event.

The Podcasting Cause

Our Mission: “The right to podcast your own voice speaking your own words cannot be licensed, and should be a freedom for all in perpetuity.”

Description: The founding principle of this cause is that podcasting, and the freedom to put your own unedited voice online, so long as it isn’t breaking the laws of the land, should be available to all, and is not a licensable commodity.

There is still a lot of confusion in the online rights space with regard to podcasting. UK Podcasters Association has attempted to make more sense of the situation by building and maintaining active links with the licensing bodies, entering into dialogue with UK government and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and joining with other groups like the EFF internationally to bring about recognition of our basic rights and to resist bad legislation in podcasting.

Why podcasting? Because in many ways, within social media, podcasting is the closest in form to old media, and as such it is likely that lawmakers will seek to bring it under their jurisdiction. How this is done matters – we want to make sure that as business comes into the space, ordinary people can still pick up a recording device, say what they want into it, make a radio or TV-format show (or any recording) of their own devising, and put it online.

Podcasting is for all, and we’d like to keep it that way.

Positions:

• Keep podcasting free, requiring no license from government or other statutory body;
• Establish podcasting as a universal right of citizens everywhere

The above text is in Facebook where if you use that social network – and we advise caution with using Facebook – you might also join the cause. Any donations go towards the UKPA to help us in our non-profit work, or in Facebook, to the EFF who helped us and podcasters everywhere resist bad legislation from WIPO.

UKPA Looking After Your Podcast Rights

The Origins of the UK Podcasters Association.

“Your right to podcast your own voice speaking your own words cannot be licensed, and should be a freedom for all in perpetuity” – UKPA Founding statement, March 2006.

The UK Podcasters Association was formed as a result of a badly phrased press release from MCPS-PRS (the UK Performing Rights Organisations who control music licensing and revenue distribution on behalf of recording companies, publishers, writers and artists) which implied they were about to licence speech-only podcasts.

UK podcasters answered this by forming a non-profit association, which produced this first articulation of podcasters’ inalienable rights.

Since then we’ve attempted to make more sense of the situation by building and maintaining active links with the licensing bodies, entering into dialogue with UK government, and joining with other groups internationally to bring about recognition of our basic rights.

Since April 2007 new members have been joining at around three per week, many of them also belonging to other associations and unions – NUJ, BECTU, Musicians Union, Radio Academy.

Thanks

UKPA would like to thank all those without whose intelligent input we would be a different (probably less able) organisation.

In particular, Ben Brassington of Harbottle and Lewis, whose legal knowledge and advice in the new field of podcasting has been invaluable;

Louise Ferguson, Glyn Wintle from the Open Rights group for their committment to the cause of rights;

Gwen Hinze from the EFF for leading the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty campaign, and Professor Mark Perry from University of Ontario, Canada for his advice on licensing.

Sincere thanks for your time, intelligence and passion for podcasting !