This American Life will change podcasts from fee to free…

Earlier this year, popular PRI radio show This American Life asked blog-fans to stop producing an “unofficial podcast” of episodes TAL only made available to paying subscribers (BB posts: link 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). The bloggers weren’t copying and hosting…

Some of us in public radio are and have been offering all our shows for free download and podcast, but God bless TAL for this nonetheless. Best radio show ever, and I mean that sincerely.

It’s interesting to see that they still really don’t get it.

Press release?! Please.

Each week’s episode will be posted on the Monday following national broadcast and will be free for seven days. After that initial week, the show will migrate into our 300+ show archive. There you can download from the iTunes Store or Audible.com for only 95 cents an episode. Or you can listen to shows for free anytime (even once they’re in our archive), via streaming audio, with our “Flashy” new streaming MP3 player.

FINALLY!!! Thank goodness. I can finally listen on a plane for free now.

Please, yourself, Mike. If this were a for-profit company, it would be worth crunching the numbers, perhaps. But given that NPR is generally hard-up for cash, there will need to be some (admittedly tiny) sort of compensation for the cost of serving the materials, porting them into podform, having some poor peon do the wrk, etc. A minor cost, but I’d much rather have that than the advertising model others will inevitably resort to to cover costs.

I think the compromise provided (one week free, less than a buck afterwards, always available as free streaming) is a solid one. Plan ahead, get it for free? Hey, not bad, given that a week is a decent window, and if you’re gong to be out of the country, you can still get the ‘cast from an internet cafe onto your portable mp3 player. Certainly better than the previous model, given that the end cost for those wishing to truly own the material — at least to the extent that they would life to shift it into portable media, outside the home streaming space — works out to, what, under 2 cents a minute? Might as well complain (“they don’t get it”) about having to pay a buck for the bus.

Wah hoo!

amazing!

[...] from this source [...]

Awesome. This after I bought audible.com’s overpriced, poor quality subscription for a year of TAL, which is still ongoing. I have a feeling Audible is going to say “Too bad, sucker! Thanks for the cash!”

And it’s been mostly repeats this year anyway. I usually feel virtuous when I do the honest thing and pay for media I could steal, but I feel like I got played for a chump.

Come on folks, the shows have always been available for free anytime you wanted them.

Even when they were just Real Audio, the ra file pointed to the url and directory where the files themselves where kept. Every week you just went there to look for a new episode, some folks scripted it.

There was no “hackery” to getting it, it was sitting there in the open. Yeesh. I thought that Ira and co knew this all along and just played coy so as not to piss off (barely)Audible.com.

That Ira and co thought this was not the case is worthy of a story on an episode of TAL that looks at false security and how folks tread quicksand while they insist its solid, Maybe David Sedaris can do a pig related piece on it. Que up a Decemberists instrumental bed, fade in Ira…and oh yeah grab the file….

-tomwsmf

To show my support for TAL’s new podcast, I’ve made a donation to TAL. If you’re happy that TAL is now available as a podcast, support the folks that make this happen.

You can donate here.

Whoaba! This is great! I used to just stream them via the audio I/O jacks into a realtime recorder. I didnt know anyother way, besides audible.com, who i’ve had not good experiences with.
I figured since it was a free Public Radio broadcast originally, why make people pay to hear it if they missed it or just really like it and wanted to hear it again or share it with friends?
I have multiple burned CD copies of TAL episode “House on Loon Lake” which is my favorite one, and i hand them out to folks who’ve never heard TAL.
Just met someone yesterday who love’s NPR and had really never heard of the show!
yahoo for podcast though!

[...] the future is yesterday » This American Life to offer free podcast: [...]

[[porting them into podform]]

Yeah, well, they’re already in mp3 format so, uhm.

Done.

[...] Original post by cashbagg [...]

Audible will be giving refunds, don’t worry.

When I noticed that clicking play next to an episode on the TAL website caused it to download automatically to the c:\Documents and Settings\User name X\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files folder, I too was incredulous. I downloaded each episode that way and copied them into my audio folders and transferred them to my mp3 player. I, like tomwsmf, thought that they might want to give the shows away. But after all the brouhaha, I could not decide if they were being coy or stupid. I still don’t know.

I still think it’s a bit odd how they have set it up. As far as I know if you are allowed to listen for free, you can record guilt free and listen on whatever device you want, that is if you happen to miss an episode by podcast now. Otherwise it’s like saying you can read my blog for free at the computer, but you must pay to print a copy and read it on the bus. (And in the past, they performed the equivalent of putting it in paused print queue anyway! to offer pause rewind functionality, I guess.)

I have been thinking a lot about copyright laws though so it’s been interesting. Over the years I have recorded from radio on cassette. If I wanted to record the number one song in America from American Top 40 (Kasey Casem), I put up with commercials and long distance dedications, etc. I have a 20 plus year old cassette with Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson singing State of Shock from WDVE’s Top 5 at 5. I have a cassette of the A Very Special Sedaris Christmas my husband recorded.

I think under Fair Use laws, all of that is completely legal. Now that it’s so easy to record internet radio and get pristine copies and split and labelled music tracks, I don’t know what I think. I mean, I think it’s still legal, but I don’t know what protections content creators should have. The reason recording is legal is so that we can time shift, and place shift right? Should we all be able to keep the recordings indefinately? I mean of course I want to, but a content creator could say once and done or up to 5 times and done and might have the technology to back it up. Well I digress, but it’s worth it for all of us to think about.

I also began wondering about what TAL was doing trying to profit from public radio. Careers were made, shows hyped, authors introduced, Sarah Vowell voiced Violet on the Incredibles. That’s a payoff. When my parents wanted to buy an audiobook for a long car trip I recommended David Sedaris. (Dress Your Family in Cordouroy and Denim, well it does have its blue moments.) I will choose an amount and pledge to TAL directly. It is that pledge time of year and we once again donated to our public radio station.

Check out episode 45 of TAL Media Fringe in which Sarah Vowell has a segment on making mix tapes in which she comments on the then $10 price for TAL CD’s.

My favorite episode is #64 Summer. Scenes from a Transplant is also great. Welcome to podcasting, TAL! What’s next, Fresh Air?

From the FAQ at TAL:

What if I already paid for a TAL subscription and/or podcast via Audible? Can I get a refund?
Audible will refund you automatically for the balance of your subscription. You don’t have to do a dern thing to get the refund; it’s already in the works. They’ll email you about this, but here’s how they describe their plan:

* Audible will fulfill all existing subscriptions, whether for one month or 12 months. Existing subscribers will continue to receive the show each week until their subscription expires. However, upon expiration, customers will not be able to renew their subscriptions.

* In addition to fulfilling all current subscriptions, Audible will be issuing refunds to existing subscribers. Subscribers need not take any action; the refunds will be made automatically. Audible Customer Service will be happy to answer any questions at 888/283-5051. You can also email Audible, or visit http://www.audible.com/helpcenter.

This American Life to offer free podcast…

I can no longer decipher the palimpsest map of the circuitous path that led me to discovering that This American Life will be available as a podcast via that RSS stuff on Monday. I tried to backtrack from Jared Benedict’s the future is yesterday …

This American Life Backs Into The Future…

the future is yesterday � This American Life to offer free podcast Hurray! Hurray! We’ll get to listen to TAL any day! The blogosphere may sneer at Chicago Public Radio’s archaic method of getting the word out to the masses……

[...] Starting Monday, This American Life will podcast. I found out through a pointer to this post via Waxy Links. The podcast rules still look very restrictive. Each episode will stay up for a week before going into the archive. The archive is designed to force use of Flash player. [...]

Two quick things. I heard a snippet of TAL the weekend of Oct 14/15. What my station aired and what was podcasted were different. The bit I heard via radio mentioned several past shows. The one I heard talked about the time one show contributor fought with MCI & Verizon about her phone bill and was told by Verizon that they were INCAPABLE of initiating a 3 way call.

Second, the podcast loaded was re-edited with the stories played in a different order, and the love story which started the original episode used as a teaser and played last. I don’t know if any material content was removed or essentially the play order and final credits were simply changed. You and the Little Mermaid can go …

[...] the future is yesterday » This American Life to offer free podcast [...]

I downloaded a bunch of 95 cent episodes. put them on my m3 payer. no problem. So i downloaded soem more. Now they are a format that doesn’t play on my mp3 player, annd they ar eprotected from being converted to an mp3 or a wma. so I’m pissed.BTW-i already give to public radio eveyr month.
Ben

Anyone have a list of episode featuring Nick Hornby? I want to purchase some episodes but have not had the time or luck necessary to find these episodes in a n easy way.