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Vote with your wallet. ... There's tons of high quality CC licensed, and independently produced, media out there.

Totally agreed. Here's a source I just recently found: Podiobooks.

Otherwise quit your bitching.

Don't be silly. Of course people should bitch when they feel that our GDP or public funds are being misdirected. And they should present the reasons for their position, so that their hypotheses can be tested for merit. How else are we supposed to detect when we are on a flawed path?

That doesn't mean you can pirate them.

According to whom, and why? This is an unsupported categorical statement, and lacks prima facie merit. Are you saying that people should not do this because it is illegal, because it harms society, both, or some other reason? You will know when you have presented an actual position, because it will be something that can be rationally challenged based on observable data. Short of that, you are just blowing wind.

Consuming them anyway without paying isn't a protest.

How do you know? How can you say what a person's motivations are for their actions?

It may not be, under your principles, a valid protest. You may have evidence that it is not an effective form of protest. You did not present anything to support either of those positions. Regardless, however, your mere declaration does not preclude copyright infringement from being a protest.

Expressing and explaining your perspective in a way that invites consideration, understanding, and growth is an excellent thing. Merely dictating what others must do to meet with your approval makes you sound like a pontificating ass.

A rash of data center hardware thefts is the starting point for the cyber-punk audio book on podiobooks called Beautiful Red. Very good listen. http://www.podiobooks.com/title/beautiful-red/feed/

There's an intersting Sci Fi novel that asks "What if the cataclysmic Tunguska explosion of 1908 was caused, not by a meteor or a comet, but by a microscopic black hole?": Singularity by Bill DeSmedt, 2004. Download the FREE unabridged audio book, read by the author.

Mine's filled with CDs I ripped myself from my own CDs (and a couple episodes of Firefly, also ripped myself from my own DVDs) and free audio from the likes of Escape Pod, Pseudo Pod and Podiobooks.com.

Despite Sony's recent assertion that I'm somehow "stealing" the music that I rip from the CDs I own, I'm Canadian, so I don't expect to be hauled off for extraordinary rendition by the RIAA. Maybe I'll go legally download some music to see if I should bother investing in any new CDs this month!

Thanks for the kind words about Singularity (the URL for the free podcast is http://www.podiobooks.com/title/singularity). And, while it's true Singularity is fiction, I also have some non-fiction thoughts on the latest Tunguska "solution" from Bologna. I go into detail on my blog at http://www.myspace.com/billdesmedt, but the bottom line is: Lake Cheko couldn't possibly be a crater formed in the Tunguska Event, because the documentary record (eyewitness accounts) clearly shows that the lake was there long before the June 1908 impact. Best, Bill

Spoiler! Spoiler!

The intro to Sigler's Ancestor is a remote research lab where a chimera goes wrong and a disease jumps species. Luckily, it is in an isolated remote region and the US drops a bomb on the compound. The US moves to crack down on other companies working on related biotech, and one of them goes underground. The company in question isn't working on a chimera, but is trying to recreate our common ancestor. The bulk of the book is about their work and what happens when they succeed. So the book isn't primarily about chimeras and disease.

Anyway, Sigler is cool and has made his book freely available both as a podiobook and as a pdf.
http://www.podiobooks.com/podiobooks/book.php?ID=8 5
http://scottsigler.podshow.com/2007/03/19/ancestor -pdf/

Apart from all the excellent NPR podcasts around, the most entertaining and impressive thing I've come across in the pod-o-sphere is the wonderful phenomenon of "podiobooks". The premier innovator and author/narrator/podcaster in this genre is Mr. Scott Sigler of Earthcore fame. If you missed the hugely enjoyable Earthcore experience you can still catch up with it (details at http://scottsigler.net/ ) and then get stuck in to Sigler's more recent Ancestor and (now in progress) Infection. There are many other great authors appearing at sites such as http://podiobooks.com/ and http://podcastalley.com/ (I'm currently listening to Singularity by Bill DeSmedt, courtesy of podiobooks). As for software, I know what you mean about the paucity of good stuff out there but I recently found the Wizz RSS newsreader extension for Firefox ( http://www.wizzcomputers.com/ )and it's really damned good. It even let me import the OPML file (whatever the fsck that is) for my podiobooks.com subscriptions.

For podcast books there's Podiobooks which has a number of books on offer, both new and public domain.

For comedy sketch and short story, there's Firesign Theatre where you can browse the comedy albums (they've been making them for 40 years) and from each album download sample tracks. They also have a podcast.

For podcast short story and essay, there's The Seanachai. Patrick Mclean comes from advertising, I think, so he has some good writing chops. He has a series called "How to Succeed in Evil without really Trying." It's very funny.

And, pants down, the best monologist in the business is Joe Frank. A free membership on his site allows you to stream a number of full-length shows.

There's also Transom.org where hopeful producers submit stuff for NPR-type program directors to peruse. Much of it is downloadable, and it includes fiction.

Lastly, I shamelessy plug myself. Of course, if I could actually shamelessly plug myself and record it on podcast, I would have a lot more listeners. Pferdzwackur's Tin Man is exactly what the original post was asking for. Original serial fiction, with bells and whistles attached.

Escape Pod (Sci-Fi/Fantasy) http://www.escapepod.info/

PodioBooks (various) http://www.podiobooks.com/

LibriVox (books in the public domain) http://librivox.org/

Hey,

You might try heading over to http://www.podiobooks.com and send the guys there a query about this.

They are using mp3 as the format.

True, but iTunes 4.9 at least, will stop downloading podcast after 5-6 episodes, if you don't listen to anything. Theese audiobooks are released one episode at a time. Fastest is one a day. Eventhough there might be 50 episodes, you can't download them all in one go, you have to wait. I figured I could start subscribing to 6 books and listen to them when they were finished... no go, I have to specifically tell iTunes to continue downloading after 5-6 episodes. This is both good and bad. I can see how logfiles can be analyzed to tell if people are actually listening or not. BUT .. why download if you don't intend to listen?

I have listened to all of Earthcore and The Pocket and The Pendant - both were EXCELLENT Sci-Fi stories. P&P has finished so you can download the entire story from the author's website. Earthcore is down to the last chapter so you can download all of it til now from the author's website then grab the last chapter when it comes out. brian

http://podiobooks.com/ -- several audio books
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/categories/1 -- Audio books including Sherlock Holmes
http://escapepod.info/ -- Sci-Fi

Some of it is news. Some of it's music. Some of it's audiobooks. And yeah, some of it's just personal life and ranting. But don't limit your perspective to just those. It's basically whatever you want.

My own podcast narrates science fiction short stories. We also do some reviews and commentary, but I've made a solemn promise on it never, ever to simply tell you about my day.