At first glance it would seem to me that a service which allows you to set up an audio feed through your phone (or VOIP) would not be something that should cause too many rights issues.
I was alerted to Gabcast by Jonathan Marks on his Critical Distance blog and signed up with the idea that as I will be spending quite a bit of time on the road over the next few months it would be nice to record some book chapters for my kids to listen to. My son Gabriel loves being read classics like Treasure Island and King Solomon's Mines.
But in signing up to Gabcast's T&Cs I agreed that anything I record will have all rights cleared and that I grant the use of the material to Gabcast in a worldwide licence.
Now I don't for a moment imagine that Gabcast is going to take my audio books recorded for limited private use and release them as a worldwide podcast. My reading voice charms my children but that's about it. Nor do I think that publishing houses are going to start chucking War and Peace through my front window.
I know the platform has to pretend that they have no control over rights and it's all my fault if something goes wrong, and I know I have to pretend that I know all about the rights and have a file of waivers and clearances somewhere and I know that publishers have to pretend they really care about people reading their editions as if it would stop them buying books.
It's just a bit silly.
Anything which can be digitally reproduced and copied is essentially valueless, in so far as value lies in the actual product. The value lies in the brand and the advertising and community opportunities it generates. And maybe it would get people to buy some analogue versions, better known as books.
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