Licensing issues will burn podcasters (Score 3, Insightful)

If you add songs to your podcast you'll need a set of licenses: for the songwriter (bmi, ascap, etc) and for the "mechanical" owner (the owner of the sound recording) at the very least. Or, you'll need explicit permission from the songwriter and the music label/artist. Podcasting won't fall under the internet broadcasting licenses. It's much closer to file sharing and will end up with the same issues as file sharing.

That's why you'll start hearing about "podcast safe" music - usually by independent artists or small labels that explicitly give permission for their songs to be included in a podcast.

Hopefully podcasters will keep this under control so that the paid for leaches in congress don't start passing legislation that would hurt this.

For public radio stations and alternative news/music organizations podcasting is awesome! I could see some podcast producers being picked up by radio show distributors. Coverville, for example, would be an excellent show even on terrestrial radio.