Photo by F.S.M..

Intellectual property (IP) law is a big, nasty, confusing world–one long-time blogger on copyright law and issues recently shut down his blog, partly because “the current state of copyright law is too depressing.” But if you’re a creative, innovative freelancer, and you’d like to protect the materials you create–your original writing, music, software, artwork or designs–this stuff is really important. How do you navigate the murky waters of copyright and intellectual property law? Where do you go for information? Do you need a lawyer? What do you have to do to protect your original creations?

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Photo by mr brown.

You’ve got the blog going–great! Maybe you’re building readership from your customer base, or from others who are interested in what you do. That’s great, too! Now you’re thinking, “Maybe I should do a podcast…”. Maybe you should. And maybe you shouldn’t.

A podcast is a bit like a radio program–it’s an audio recording that is distributed in the form of a digital audio file, such as an MP3, that can be downloaded, transferred to a media player device, such as an iPod or a Zune or one of the others, and played back whenever the listener chooses. It can be a recording of a single person talking about a particular subject, providing information, dispensing opinion, or just making observations. Some podcasts are recordings of two or more people having conversations about the subject matter at hand. Other podcasts are more like interview shows. Some podcasts are like audio books, others are like music programming on the radio. Podcasting has been around for several years now, and it has flourished–chances are that someone is out there podcasting about whatever interests you.

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