YouTube Content ID, AdRev and Copyright Infringment

[MichaelL]

If a library has your music on a non-exclusive basis and it puts your music into Content ID it is violating YouTube’s terms of service.

Here’s the relevant language:

“Copyright owners must be able to provide evidence of the copyrighted content for which they control exclusive rights…

….Copyright owners must have the exclusive rights to the material that is evaluated. Common examples of items that may not be exclusive to individuals include:

….music or video that was licensed, but without exclusivity…”

The non-non-exclusive libraries entering your music into Content ID are not the copyright owner and they do not have exclusive rights to your music.

[Michael Nickolas]

You’re 100% correct Michael. These companies need to pay attention to what they’re doing, follow YouTube guidelines and act responsibly with our assets. Instead of telling us “oh, that wasn’t supposed to happen” they need to get their act together and not let it happen in the first place. Composesr do not need to waste their time fixing libraries mistakes.

[Michael Nickolas]

The comments of this video are interesting:

[Art Munson]

Thanks Michael Nickolas, nice primer.

[gen5020]

(first time writing). Great video Michael, thanks. So I’m looking to start my own web/production music site to sell my tracks. Having many of these tracks in RF libraries like P5, Audiosparx, Crucial etc… will my future clients get the content ID issues when they get my track? I have never signed with ADRev personally. If the answer is yes, is there anything I can do about it? I assume these are watermarked so just retitling isn’t going to help.

[Music1234]

They never really properly address the concept of “exclusivity”

Must it be Exclusively licensed from the original creator of the composition?

Must it be Exclusively licensed from “exclusive publisher/ library”?

And what happens when tracks are “sub published” or distributed to library agents all over the world?

Tracks simply do not just exist in only one database/ search engine.

YOUTUBE should simply not allow anyone to upload anything until they present all clearances required: music, photos, video clips, etc. Simply stated, you should not be allowed to upload a video to youtube unless you present the music license.

However, businesses such as ADREV and Identifyy want people to do that so that they can claim those videos and have them monetize back to adrev and identifyy and ultimately the music producers.These models are funny in that they flourish when people engage in copyright infringement. And also so many videos are monetizing back to composer when the client “really did” buy a music license.

[Michael Nickolas]

Having many of these tracks in RF libraries like P5, Audiosparx, Crucial etc… will my future clients get the content ID issues when they get my track?

Only the copyright owner (which is you) is allowed to enter tracks into content ID so non-exclusive RF libraries like you mentioned should not be entering your tracks. Meaning that no, your future clients will not get content ID issues.

If you read some back posts though, you will see that there are often problems with non-exclusive libraries “inadvertently” entering tracks in to content ID when they shouldn’t be. It’s happened to me and more than once. I don’t think the ones you’ve named would do so. Crucial is very careful with legalities. Audiosparx actually requires your music not to be in content ID, so they won’t be putting it there. And pond5 hasn’t ever been a problem that I’ve heard about.

[Art Munson]

there are often problems with non-exclusive libraries “inadvertently” entering tracks in to content ID when they shouldn’t be.

I found 40 tracks like that from various libraries. I contacted AdRev (I have an account there) and they removed them all.

[gen5020]

Thanks for the info guys!

[Author]

Posts