dose

This American Life is a wonderful radio show, and some of the best audio you can find these days. The offer their shows in a stream, and as mp3, but don’t give you an RSS feed for the shows. Boo.

Jon Udell kindly set up an RSS feed for them, as Jared Benedict had done some time earlier.

Then, according to this from Udell, both received cease & dessit letters requests to take the feeds down, to whit:

We must ask you to immediately remove the This American Life MP3s that you’ve posted to the web. You’re violating our copyright, and we’re obligated to protect it…

Thanks for your immediate cooperation.

Some people do not understand what the internet is for, Some contracts were made which are unnecessarily constraining broadcasters from podcasting, and it’s very frustrating (see below).

UPDATE: here’s the problem: TAL sells it podcasts thru Audible.com, so a free version undermines their revenues, from the FAQ:

This American Life podcasts are available to weekly subscribers at Audible.com. There is a fee for shows delivered via podcasting, the same as other TAL episodes purchased through Audible or the Apple Music Store. [more …]

UPDATE 2: I had a nice email exchange with Elisabeth Meister, from TAL, upshot: The problem is royalty contracts with TAL contributors, which allow free streaming, but require payment for CD sales and for downloads - so TAL can’t offer free downloads. But perhaps TAL will see the light and proper non-audible.com, free podcasting may be on the way sometime in the future, so we can all cross our fingers. In the mean time, I’m annoyed I didn’t download all the mp3s while I had a chance.

Jared has the insider’s scoop here.