What can happen if you don’t play podsafe music on your podcast? That’s one conundrum facing podcasters who want to play music: the cost of the license.

Or aside from that, the fear that if you are NOT properly licensed, you will get caught by the RIAA or the Music Police or some Big Brother entity and spend the rest of your life in jail or pay huge fines.

Hmm. It’s not fun! So I was elated when GarageBand.com came along offering thousands of podsafe songs for free.

In fact, the fun folks at GarageBand.com promote themselves as a place for podsafe music: some 40,000 tunes.

If you’re a member of a band, you can join GarageBand.com and upload your own songs. There are a couple of ways: review 30 songs and upload them for free, or pay a reasonable fee of around $20 to upload songs, which will then be reviewed by other GarageBand.com members.

However, as a podcaster, this is where the concept really works. You can choose a genre (acoustic, alternative, rock, world, etc.) and download it as you please. Every band that uploads music under one of three arrangements: they either give it away to anyone to podcast under any circumstances, or they make it available once you contact them and ask for permission, or they make it available as streaming audio only . Either way, you get safe music for your podcast, and lots of it.

And of course the band gets free publicity and GarageBand.com gets a boost too because you’ll definitely want to mention them on your podcast.

I won’t go into all the great benefits active musicians and bands get from GarageBand.com, but if you’re in a band and haven’t heard of this website, you’ll want to check it out right away.

I’ve been looking to spice up my show with some music for a while, and aside from playing my OWN music, this seems like a great source for podsafe music.

The Chairman of the GarageBand.com Advisory Board is Sir George Martin, the man who signed The Beatles and produced all their records (except ‘Let It Be’, produced by Phil-Spector). Jerry Harrison, ex-Talking Head and professional producer, is one of the co-founders.

Listen to GarageBand.com and you’re sure to find great ‘podsafe’ music for your podcast.