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In the end of the day people can read this thread and decide for themselves whose “advice” to take. It seems to me Dave consistently avoided the primary question about exclusivity of streaming rights which is what all of this hangs on ultimately.
IMHO of course, never take information you find on the internet as gospel, suddenly everyone is a lawyer/doctor/psychologist/tech expert/library owner etc. ( with respect to the people on here who are actually one of the professions mentioned LOL) For the record I am none of these!!!!
Also personal abuse on forums is always the last recourse to a reasonable debate. Content ID has repercussions, find out how they affect you personally.
Wow. So having music in libraries, even on a non-exclusive basis, causes problems with monetizing one’s music.
Absolutely, Non-Exclusive music is the main problem with CID since there are several companies selling the same music if any one company puts the music into the CID system, then clients of all other companies licensing these songs will experience copyright claims causing problems for all of these libraries. We deal with the licensing of Exclusive and Non-Exclusive music but we have decided not to go near Non-Exclusive CID as it’s literally a mess.
Would adding music to AdRev/CID and controlling it truly pose problems for the composer? Aren’t composers able to do direct licenses with their music outside of music libraries for non-exclusive purposes?
I’m sure many composers have their music in CID as well as libraries and have no idea that they are in breach of their agreement with whatever CID company they choose (AdRev, Audiam etc.). Adrev no doubt has an air tight agreement that composers have to sign that is essentially having the composer also agree to YouTube’s terms of service. So if it comes down to a lawsuit over a license or over an ad being placed on a video (doesn’t matter if the license is $25 or $50,000) if for example it is a Corporate Video for Pepsi and an ad is placed on the video for let’s say Coke, there will surely be a lawsuit. So this would first come down on the library that licensed the music, but then it will be made apparent that the CID ad has nothing to do with the library, it was the composer who put the song into CID and is responsible for the offending ad. This would divert the responsibility to the composer since the composer technically didn’t have the right to put this song into CID since they gave up their exclusive streaming rights the second they signed the contract with the library. Also the AdRev contract would be secondary evidence that the composer once again was aware and guaranteed and warranted that the music they entered into CID complies with YouTubes terms (mainly exclusive streaming rights). So getting back to your question, I’m sure YouTube (Google) and AdRev won’t care until there is litigation since they would both be profiting but once there is litigation, that’s when it all comes down to the contract language and what YOU signed. Google and Adrev are more than protected with their legal documentation.
@Dave
1. “complexities” – The “complexities” can be eliminated if the license itself issued at purchase tells the customer how to eliminate ads from their YT videos. You can also add, “if you are having trouble, you can write to this composer, Mr Writer@gmail.com and ask them to clear your video of ads.”
We need to have everything pre-cleared such as the master and composition licensing rights so that we can completely service the client without needing intervention from the composer and this includes being able to clear CID claims. If we have a disgruntled video producer who is super stressed out because their client, let’s say Nike and the Ad agency who contracted them are all freaking out because they are getting a copyright claim and there is unauthorized advertising on their videos, it can be a lot of pressure on us to resolve it. We are sure to be available during business hours if such a situation arises, we cannot allow the client to have to hunt down the composer to get the claim removed. What if the composer has a day job and isn’t available during business hours? What if they go on vacation for a month and is not reachable? What if they change their email address or phone number and it becomes a dead end so the client can’t reach them at all? The main reason that this can’t work though is that the composer has no idea what songs were licensed by us until they get their statement so this is just not practical. It’s our job as administrator to deal with these problems, we don’t want to put any extra work on the client so we insist on dealing with all of these claims ourselves.
Your guys are making $1 to $3 a month? Well everyone will have a different story in CID land, just as everyone will have a different story in RF markets, and Back end royalties, and sync fees. It all depends on how well you sell and how much you have out there floating around in the unruly youtube universe.
Actually, the way we look at it, the less money that is coming in via CID, the better. Remember, this money is not earned from videos that legitimately license music from us, those videos will be monetized by the owners of the videos. The money that is earned via CID is from uses by copyright infringers who steal our Exclusive music and since we do not want people infringing our music, we do what we can to keep this under control and minimize it. We don’t look at CID as a source of revenue, it is our job to protect the copyrights that we represent not try to make more money by hoping more people steal our music and possibly one video will go viral, that is completely the opposite of what our responsibility as copyright administrators are. It’s our duty as publishers to protect these copyrights and if it becomes known that we do anything to try to encourage more infringers to steal our music just to make some CID money, we put ourselves at risk of litigation as we guarantee and warrant in our agreements with composers that we will protect the copyrights. Encouraging infringement for profit is not exactly a responsible business move and is known to video producers as Trolling (this is what gives CID a bad name and why video producers want to stay as far away as possible). When our CID revenue is low, we know we are doing a good job.
My point is this: What if CID just became a way of life for everyone to deal with forever. A drag for video producers? Yes…it is.
This is a buyers market, we don’t dictate how things will go, the buyers and the market do. If video producers don’t want to deal with CID, they will simply chose a library that doesn’t do it or has full control of their music. Look what is happening with Non-Exclusive music now, clients are making things trend towards Exclusive for many reasons, music supervisors are getting swamped with the same music by every library causing an administrative inconvenience for them which started the decline but still, things were manageable. Non Exclusive music is repped by too many companies and there is less control of where the music is and how it is being managed. The more lawsuits the less confidence clients have in Non Exclusive music. Now CID is a new driving factor pushing libraries toward exclusive music because Exclusive libraries simply have more control over the music and the client can be assured that the company they picked for their licensing is the only company that has the right to do anything with it. We still actually sell more Non-Exclusive music than Exclusive (since our Non-Excluisve library is 25 times the size of our Exclusive) but CID is making things tough for the Non Exclusive side of things.
We were happy back when we were just licensing Non-Exclusive music, it was much simpler and composers were happy to spread their music around because hey, it’s non exclusive. Now because of our client’s needs, we started an exclusive division about 5 years ago because we have to give the clients what they want whether we like it or not. We are not RF, we are mainly TV, commercials and Film but are doing a lot of online corporate vids these days too. CID affects us very negatively when we license a non exclusive track to a client and they get a claim on the video either from the composer or another library and get mad at us, but we don’t even have our non exclusive catalog in CID… We don’t have these problems with our Exclusive library as we only have our Exclusive library in CID.
We have insurance for all of our tracks to protect us from litigation with liability errors and omissions insurance. Our insurance company now sees Non Exclusive music as a much higher risk than exclusive music and we pay a much higher premium for that library than we do with exclusive music. Why? It’s mainly because Non-Exclusive music is being repped by who knows who else and who knows if they know what they are doing. There are a ton of small inexperienced non exclusive libraries now. They could be blindly starting problems by entering their non exclusive library in CID which could give us a lawsuit because it affects our clients. So my point here is that no matter what we want as composers and publishers/libraries it’s the client who dictates the direction of the trends, not us.
But also Jay, what about the example back in the thread that I gave about the “dishonest publisher”. Remember the story about my friend who sent a UK publisher his catalog, and from time to time he asks “Any good news on my catalog?” and the answer is always “Nothing yet.”
Tunesat is the best solution for monitoring. Remember, CID is not predominantly a monitoring system, it can be used for monitoring, but as soon as you put music into the system you are suddenly delegitimizing licenses that we are selling for YOU and making our clients unhappy. How is this good for anyone? Tunesat is the exact solution for the situation you mentioned because it’s purely a monitoring service and does not interfere with licensing clients.
While I may be dreaming, I do happen to think that if all ORIGINAL CREATORS CID’d up their entire catalogs in one big swoosh, writers would certainly regain control of their works and force the entire industry to deal with the new rules
Yes, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you are dreaming. If all composers blindly threw their music into CID and disregarded what they promised in their library and their CID contracts then this would essentially drive all video producers to stay far away from any companies associated in any way with CID. They will run to either non exclusive libraries that have a strict NO CID policy or Exclusive libraries that can properly control these things. We have had had many producers come to us after having CID problems with other companies and they are not willing to simply accept that this is the way it’s going to be, they are not happy with CID and see trollers as the lowest form of profiteers that are trying to leech off of authorized licensees hoping they won’t notice the claims (this is usually not the case, but that’s how they see CID users). Please go read some video producer forums, that will set you straight and you will realize the level of frustration that they are currently experiencing and they are becoming more and more fed up and your “solution” to the problem is definitely not a practical solution. Composers and libraries cannot persuade the clients to accept CID. The only way that video producers are going to accept CID is if YouTube changes their system better accommodate the library industry as it’s currently not build for licensing at all.
@Jay. Thank you for a remarkably cogent post.
You’re very welcome
Yes, thanks Jay, very clear and extremely informative!
+1 Jay
Very helpful post for composersThanks Jay, You’re post gave me probably the most comprehensive understanding of the whole CID mess I’ve been looking for.
Thanks Jay, should really be a sticky Art.
should really be a sticky Art.
Yep, been thinking I should spin this off to another thread about YouTube CID, Adrev, etc with it’s own link.
@soundroad you can try the following on your own:
1) If you music is being sold on a on a website, do a “who-is” search to find out who owns the site, and who hosts it.
2) Send out DMCA take down notices. You can find out how to do that on google. There are also cheap DIY sites.
3) You can also hit YT with DMCA notices.Best of luck
Something tells me that my DMCA notices for the monsters like YT or iTunes will be like a mosquito bite to an elephant:).
No actually, if you can prove that you are the rights owner, they have to comply. The law was written with harsh penalties to encourage voluntary compliance.
they have to comply
That’s true. It doesn’t matter how big they are, the law is the law in this case and they have to comply or the accused has to prove otherwise.
Maybe time to resurrect this thread now that some time has passed
since there was a very interesting discussion going on.I am a pretty anonymous RF composer with around 3000+ licenses sold to date and I registered with AdRev a year ago. I don’t regret it as I’m getting around $1000 a month from my 250 tracks, a number that, according to the AdRev guys, is increasing.
I have been forced to leave one library (MusicLoops / Mark Lewis) and I respect that decision as AdRev clearly brings in more $$$Â for me than ML did, but I’ve had no problem with any other library. In fact, the #1 site in terms of number of licenses sold, the (in)famous AudioJungle, now actively supports AdRev and educates the buyers. The tracks clearly registered with AdRev sell just as well as before.
Out of 2500 videos found I’ve had 3-4 complaints and a few more friendly e-mails asking what to do.
To comment on the question: “what to do with unlicensed use on YouTube?” to which we got the answer: “use the law”. This is simply not realistic.
I also want to comment on the assumption that you need fans of your music to have your music uploaded to YouTube in masses. Not at all. Not even close. You just need to have had your music licensed in a video created by someone with lots of fans. Completely different story. The kids love ripping and re-uploading those videos to their own channels in compilations or best of videos etc. Your music just happened to tag along with it. Now unlicensed.
I happened to have an old track in a Minecraft video that was properly licensed. No problems there. But people re-uploaded that animation HUNDRED of times with a total of 10+ million views to date. That is a lot of $$$ for me. Even shared with the video creator who also had his visual content registered.
Any other comments now that some time has passed? I’m eager to know how the situation is now.
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