“It was all a lot more fun when no one was making any money and only worried about putting out fun shows that mattered to them.”

You can say that about any creative medium. You can bet when someone figures they can make money, they’ll figure a way to get their hooks into it.

I was not a truly early adapter in the world of podcasting, but I had my first (and only, so far) podcast up and running by late ’05, “The Mike and Michelle Show”. Podshow lured away my podcasting partner Michelle B. – unlike Dawn & Drew, Keith & Chemda, the Love Long and Prosper pair or many other podcasting couples, Michelle and I are most definitely not in a relationship – with promises of this and that. Without going to into detail, IMHO, they’ve basically failed to deliver for her.

I was not offered a contract with Michelle because I was perceived to be “anti-Podshow”. I was never anti-Podshow. In fact I thought the special treatment Podshow offered its talent at the ’06 Portable and New Media Expo was pretty cool and said so publicly (apparently, I later learned, some of the talent – no names – let it go to their heads). Back when I listened to the Daily Source Code, Adam Curry typically came off as knowledgeable and very much in the game.

Just as a side note, in our podcast Michelle and I debated ad nauseum about “soundvertising”, product integration in podcasts, so on. I personally found Adam Curry’s Senseo experiment interesting maybe the first two times I heard it. After that, ehhh.

My specific concerns with Podshow were primarily about contracts that smelled like Old-Media contracts modeled on what the major music labels did. I was vocal about it in our podcast “The Mike and Michelle Show” while Michelle publicly said, “I believe Adam, I love Adam….”

I talked at length about the contract Keith and Chemda had gotten hold of, qualifying my points by saying “IF this is a legitimate contract….” I found the contract stuff ironic as Adam Curry was very specific in the DSC about “owning your own shit”, i.e., your content and related rights to exploit, so on, while the Podshow contract prevented a podcaster from jumping ship at the close of the contract and taking with them the name of their podcast for a full year, if I remember correctly.

In fairness to Adam Curry, his advice about retaining ownership and control of your content, like much of his advice on a range of other technical matters, is quite sound. He also advised that nobody sign a contract – and I am paraphrasing here, so I’ll be happy to be subject to correction – without reading it and understanding it, and running it past a lawyer.

The Free PDN contract referenced below does not limit the non-exclusive right to “publish”, which means, since the limiting language is not in the contract, that if, say, someone decides to read their novel as a podiobook and push it through the Free PDN, technically MeVio could transcribe it, publish it on paper, and sell it on a “non-exclusive” basis. I am not saying they would, I am only saying according to the contract they could. Or let’s say you trust the current MeVio leadership implicitly. This doesn’t prevent the new owners, in the event of a sale, from fully exploiting the content for which they have legally been granted a non-exclusive license.

To this day, the Free PDN contract on the MeVio site* allows MeVio to continue to stream whatever content the content creator uploaded indefinitely, even long after the talent has closed shop at MeVio and moved on.

As for getting your stuff onto MeVio, that can apparently happen whether you sign with them, upload to them, ignore them, or even actively oppose them. I did a quick search and found the decidedly non-MeVio Keith and the Girl there, and even added it to “my channel”. I did not have to search for “Goodnight Burbank”, which was non-MeVio (note: Hayden Black just got back to me. He did upload about three episodes of Goodnight Burbank to MeVio, in hopes of expanding his subscriber base). I looked for Podshow and MeVio links or references on the official Goodnight Burbank website, and found none. Goodnight Burbank – not one of MeVio’s “star” vidcasts – was featured right on MeVio’s homepage when I opened it just a few minutes ago.

Adam Curry joked about breaking up Keith and the Girl – “Adam and the Girl?” – but in the podcasting world, Mike and Michelle went into pod-fade largely because Michelle put all her eggs in Podshow’s basket.

To this day Michelle’s still slaving away on “Whispered Pearls”, “Michebel’s Hollywood”, and most recently an erotic podiobook, “The Golden Path of Love” for MeVio/Podshow, and in fairness she has built a sizable audience by independent podcasting standards. Still, MeVio hasn’t exactly enabled her to kiss off her day job.

While I don’t have anything official from Michelle on on Bloom’s comment, I can’t imagine she’d find it flattering.

* From the MeVio Free PDN contract, item 2.4, which, according to item 5, “survives” termination of the contract:

“You hereby grant to MeVio the non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide right and license to digitize, convert, install, upload, select, order, arrange, compile, combine, synchronize, use, reproduce, store, process, retrieve, transmit, translate, distribute, publish, publicly display, publicly perform and hyperlink your Programming; and make archival or back-up copies of your Programming in any venues, media and channels of distribution now existing or yet to be invented. (hereinafter collectively referred to herein as “Use”).”

As for MeVio’s possible future plans, you can’t blame them for being prepared. The following is Item 10 from the same Free PDN contract:

“Assignment. You agree not to cause or permit any assignment, sublicense or transfer of this Agreement or its rights or obligations under this Agreement to any third party without the prior written consent of MeVio. MeVio may assign this Agreement to another party in connection with the change of control of the MeVio Website.”

In exchange for them streaming your content (a service you can obtain from specialists like Libsyn for as little as $5/mo), you as the independent content creator are bound in perpetuity, albeit in a limited, non-exclusive way. They aren’t.

It seems to me that MeVio’s own contract belies Bloom’s statement. If their business isn’t about exploiting user-generated content, why would the above-referenced paragraphs be part MeVio’s Free PDN contract???

BTW the same post with embedded links is available at:

http://www.thepodosphere.com

People was there ever any doubt? Podshow was born and crafted of blatant opportunism and nothing more. Look at the background of both Ron and Adam on re: the Net and it’s very clear how they operate.

On a positive note, maybe now that Podshow has redefined itself, user generated content can continue to develop on its own terms.

No matter the fate of the company, you’re right about one thing: It was a lot more fun when shows were being done for fun instead of profit.