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Do you want your tracks to be removed from every library they’re with and cause potentially harmful problems for yourself in the future, and those libraries? If the answer’s ‘no’ then read on!
If you write for libraries, or are a library owner, you need to be aware of the dangers of Content ID claims and the companies tempting you with promises of advertising revenue.
The idea behind each is similar, and seemingly harmless. You want your music to make money when it’s used in videos or shared online, so you register it with Youtube’s Content ID system or with one of the many ad revenue companies that have appeared almost overnight.
A composer decided to upload his entire catalogue to an ‘ad revenue’ company without notifying any of the libraries that his tracks were with. What could possibly go wrong?
One of our best clients often sends pre-broadcast videos to distributors, using Youtube or Vimeo.
One of the tracks he chose was by that particular writer, so when the video was uploaded to his Youtube channel, he received a warning message…
“You may be in violation of copyright! You can either remove the video, or allow us to insert an advert at the start.
Failure to comply with these requests may result in your channel being blacklisted.”The client obviously asked me why he received this warning, as he’d legally licensed the track, along with many others.
He certainly wouldn’t want adverts forcibly put into his own films, or have his videos blacklisted!
My first thought was ‘scam’. My second was ‘Wait a sec… how does this scam potentially affect my relationship with this client’.
I contacted the company who’d illegally given my client a warning message. Within minutes they’d removed the warning and apologised.
Several questions rose up…
Hhmm… no request of a copy of a contract to check I owned the right to that track?
How legitimate is this company?
Will any other clients receive warnings?
What could this do to my reputation?
How many other writers may have signed up with this company?
I emailed the writer but they told me they want to keep the tracks with this company. I explained that :
they were breaching our writer agreement in which we require necessary rights to license the compositions to clients
and
they were breaching the monetization company’s agreement by uploading tracks that were under other contracts
and
I’d have to remove their tracks from my library, in order to avoid this happening again.Again they wanted to remain with this company.
The result? They lost out on £3000+ broadcast royalties from just 1 documentary and breach of their contract meant all of their tracks were removed from our catalogue and our sub-licensors.
Luckily my reputation wasn’t damaged, but if I wasn’t one of the nice guys in the industry (and I’m sure some of you know a few who would jump straight on the legal bandwagon) I could have legally claimed for breach of copyright and the writer would be paying possibly more in court fees than they could make from that company.
I could have also had their catalogue removed from the monetization company’s system, but their decision was to stick with them and I respect that, right or wrong.Unfortunately more companies are offering to ‘look after your interests’ including Facebook so please check the legalities and pitfalls before making any decisions!
Thank you for reading.
Adam
Bump.
Great post, Adam. Extremely bad judgment on your composer’s part.
I would avoid Content ID, unless the music involved was only in one library, and the library approved.
+1 to what MichaelL said.
I steer clear of Content ID when it comes to NE deals.
Agreed. And more than once I’ve had to contact libraries that represent my tracks non-exclusively because they “inadvertently” placed my music in the content ID system without the right to do so and without telling me.
what is worse, you putting tracks in content ID, or someone else putting tracks in content ID for you?
Just to be clear, putting your tracks into ContentID does not prevent others from stealing your music or multiple parties entering your tracks into contentID without your permission.
I have seen up to 5 false claims from different companies on the same music track including the one from the original composer.I think all music buyers are aware of it, increasingly adapting to it, and getting videos white listed in advance
In my experience this not at all the case.
The process is painless.
Except for the client who does not understand all of this and is not aware that he might be able to go to AdRev to request the false claim removed.
The majority of customers simply assume that the library is selling music illegally when their youtube channel gets flagged for copyright infringement.There are also many contentID middlemen other than AdRev who do not have a system in place to contest false claims.
Hi Adam, I just wanted to clear something up –
If you write for libraries, or are a library owner, you need to be aware of the dangers of Content ID claims and the companies tempting you with promises of advertising revenue.
“Dangers” is a strong word – it should be pretty obvious to anyone that Content ID is NOT appropriate for NON-EXCLUSIVE libraries.
However, some exclusive libraries, i.e. ones that control all the rights to their music, do really well through Content ID. In fact, one library I write for sends me AdRev checks that have recently eclipsed anything I get from royalty free library sales. We’re talking popular trailer music, so maybe it’s not a fair comparison, but I wanted to mention it because Content ID income can and often does make its way to music creators.
I think it’s important for any library, especially non-exclusive ones, to educate their clients on how Content ID works, so there is less ‘freak out’ when their YouTube channel gets a message saying they have ‘3rd party matched content’ (and by the way, the language YouTube uses when there is a match is now less dire than before, so hopefully that helps clients freak out a little less).
This could be in the invoice the client receives, or spelled out before the customer goes to purchase the files.
No matter how vigilant you are about not getting your non-exclusive tracks placed in Content ID, someone will mistakenly (or deliberately) try it at some point.
No matter how vigilant you are about not getting your non-exclusive tracks placed in Content ID, someone will mistakenly (or deliberately) try it at some point.
I am finding for the last two years that there have been almost no issues with our library and youtube contentID. The only issues we’ve had are from composers who wanted to join AdRev and they pulled their music to do so.
But then came back with new non-AdRev music and opened new accounts.Thanks to the vigilance of our composers we’ve got a really clean catalog that causes no grief to our customers and our customers really appreciate it.
And I really appreciate it!In previous years I was battling false claims on a daily basis, a real nightmare.
I think youtube has also finally stepped up a bit and made it mandatory that people uploading content actually need to prove they have the exclusive rights to upload that content. They also threaten to close contentID partner accounts that result in too many false claim complaints.
yay progress!
I think youtube has also finally stepped up a bit and made it mandatory that people uploading content actually need to prove they have the exclusive rights to upload that content.
This is the direction in which the law is moving — placing the burden on youtube to vet content before accepting it for Content ID.
Perhaps they know it’s coming.
Perhaps they know it’s coming.
I think there might be some truth to that.
CID is not going away ever. And if anything it’s a tidal wave that can not be stopped.
Of course it is not going away, CID is a great thing, it is an amazing innovation that protects music on a huge platform.
It is the abuse of this innovation that is slowly going away.I also think the tidal wave that was mentioned has probably already happened a few years ago and the water is now receding. CID middlemen are using much more caution before accepting just anyone with a tune they produced in Garageband.
In fact these CID companies like Tunecore, Audiam and CD Baby are creating policies where they no longer accept music created with non-exclusive sample libraries including companies like Kontakt and BFD and of course software like Garageband.
They cannot represent this type of music simply because they are prone to triggering false copyright claims on youtube and with too many strikes against the claiming account they end up in jeopardy of losing their CID partnership.I think this has a lot to do with why my daily hassle of false copyright claims on our clients youtube videos has essentially gone to zero.
Youtube is finally making these CID middlemen accountable and they are acting more responsibly.Here’s hoping it continues.
In fact these CID companies like Tunecore, Audiam and CD Baby are creating policies where they no longer accept music created with non-exclusive sample libraries including companies like Kontakt and BFD and of course software like Garageband.
I’m not sure what you mean by “non-exclsuive sample libraries.” If you eliminate all music that has Kontakt instruments in it you eliminate a huge swath of everything from Electronica to the most “Epic” of trailer cues. In other words, you eliminate virtually everything.
Even high-end sample libraries, like 8dio, Spitfire, LASS, and Project SAM run on Kontakt. I can’t imagine BFD being a problem. It’s “loops” are fully customizable, with respect to mixes, tempi, signal processing on invividual kit pieces, and feel. Additionally, it’s price point makes it not the most widely used drum library. Toontrack and Studio Drummer, even Slate’s drums are less expensive.
Don’t see that being workable, because you’re talking about eliminating the tools used by 99% of media composers.
Moreover, the chances of any two composers using exactly the same sound palette, key, tempo, are very slim (unless they’re both ripping off the same track, e.g. Hans Zimmer, U2, Coldplay, etc etc ad naseum.
If, on the other hand, you’re talking about fully produced loops, like in NI’s Machine, Future Loops, or othe construction kit type libraries, I can see where that’s a problem if people use them “as is.”
Of course, if this is true, it’s highly ironic that CDBaby would ban Kontakt instruments while allowing someone to upload 11 albums of them singing bad karaoke over other people’s tracks and claiming the material as original.
I know, it is completely bizarre and unworkable. But it is their policy apparently.
Below are direct quotes from the companies (pulled from digital music news)…
Here’s what Tunecore said:
“You cannot submit tracks to YouTube for revenue collection that?-Contain any audio library samples, sound effects, or production loops (such as GarageBand loops)?-Contain any third party content that you do not have exclusively licensed (such as samples you do not have exclusively licensed)”
And CD Baby has similar rules:?“As far as YouTube goes you would have to monetize the content on your own as we can not monetize this type of content [i.e. legitimate and cleared but non-exclusive samples] as it is often disputed or removed”
And yes, the CD Baby policy is especially weird as they did allow Music Theft guy to upload complete songs that were not his.
My point though is that Youtube has obviously ramped up the rules for CID partners regarding generating thousands of false copyright claims on innocent videos.
@Mark, do you have a link to the specific article?
DMN doesn’t always get it right. I just read a statement about “fair use” that’s a misinterpretation of the law.
Maybe they aren’t clear on these new policies.
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