When Publishing Online, Always Honor the Copyrights

Before uploading your creation, know whether you're legally entitled to. If you wrote it, it's yours. You can quote snippets of other people's work (with attribution) under the fair-use doctrine, but otherwise it's a no-no to post or sell copyrighted content. Most services eventually yank copyright-infringing items from their servers, and they may ban you from posting unless you desist. If it came from a CD, it's probably copyrighted. To find royalty-free "podsafe" music to use in your productions, choose songs that are in the public domain (primarily music and lyrics published before 1922 in the United States). To locate such content, visit the Podsafe Music Network, PodsafeAudio, or Creative Commons.

Send your questions and tips to nettips@spanbauer.com. We pay $50 for published items. Scott Spanbauer is a contributing editor for PC World.