While late to the party, I thought I'd take a moment to provide a legal perspective on last week's blogosphere brouhaha regarding the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's evident policy of not allowing Creative Commons-licensed music to be used on (at least) its radio broadcasts and podcasts. For background, see the comments to this post at the CBC's website, particularly the comment made by Chris Boyce, who is Programming Director at the CBC; this post by Michael Geist; this post at the Creative Commons blog (which itself contains numerous links to other sites covering the story); and this post by Chris Castle. I should also note, for what it's worth, that I am an admirer of the Creative Commons effort to create a licensing scheme which facilitates the dissemination of creative works.

If I had to use two phrases to summarize my concerns to a client who asked whether they could or should be using CC-licensed materials on their radio broadcasts or podcasts, it would be these: ease of use; and lack of legal recourse.

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