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I’m exploring options for sharing licensable tracks and demos with potential clients. I’m concerned about file theft. If I create private playlists on SoundCloud, and send the playlist link only to people I select, am I putting my tracks at risk? Obviously the person I send the link to could rip the tracks. But can others?
Thanks
Anyone who gets that private link can stream the track.
File theft / unauthorized use is a well debated topic here. Basically two sides to the argument – should I protect my music and demos online by taking such steps as watermarking streaming demos, and not uploading to SoundCloud or YouTube, or just not worry about?
If you’re working on a project that needs secrecy, like a film or commercial, then obviously the files need to be locked down and not available to the public. You might want to keep music designed for high end clients under wraps too (i.e. trailers) until it’s used.
But once the project is done, or the music out in the public, I fall into the side that thinks there’s not much to worry about.
What do you have to lose by someone ‘stealing’ your music?
If someone’s going to use your music illegally, or download it for listening purposes without paying for it, they weren’t going to pay for it in the first place.
More to the point – any legitimate business that would actually be able to afford a license fee is not going to try and use music for free (they would putting them and their clients at risk).
What do you have to lose by someone ‘stealing’ your music?
If someone’s going to use your music illegally, or download it for listening purposes without paying for it, they weren’t going to pay for it in the first place.
Large publishing companies and record labels have been unsuccessfully trying to fight piracy and theft for over a decade. If artists like Bruno Mars, Beyonce, Katy Perry are having their music stolen, then my music doesn’t stand much of a chance of not being stolen.
Piracy is wrong, but there isn’t much one can do about it besides not releasing music over the Internet.
It’s a question I planned to ask. is there a audio sharing site that is less leaky than SC but still convenient? A while back everything I had on SC turned up for free on an illegal Panamanian site.
Personally, I use a watermark that say’s “preview” and it doesn’t seem to bother clients and kind of takes some of the worry out it, considering I don’t use something like adrev for stock music. You could do something like reverbnation/bandcamp/youtube, or you can build your own site with it’s own audio player and share that.
A while back everything I had on SC turned up for free on an illegal Panamanian site.
I know what you mean! I have 100’s of tracks shared on Russian / Ukrainian / Chinese etc sites, some of it is music I sell on iTunes, but most is library stuff not sold to the public.
The question is, though, is this such a bad thing? Through my work in trailers, I’m fortunate to be able to say I now make more from iTunes that from royalty free sales (one went up, the other down). Perhaps the stolen music is acting like an advertising campaign – taking its ‘fee’ but still working fairly cost effectively.
The question is, though, is this such a bad thing? Through my work in trailers, I’m fortunate to be able to say I now make more from iTunes that from royalty free sales (one went up, the other down). Perhaps the stolen music is acting like an advertising campaign – taking its ‘fee’ but still working fairly cost effectively.
Man, that is awesome. Good to see that even though one revenue stream dropped, another picked up. And you are selling more on iTunes. They get a ton more traffic than most RF sites combined. Congratulations!
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