Thought I would revive this conversation. One of our readers e-mailed me and mentioned that YouTube no longer pulls videos for copyright infringement if music a client purchased elsewhere, is used on a YouTube video but YouTube has the rights to the same music via a 3rd party deal. In this case our reader has a deal with Rumblefish and states that the video producer will simply get a letter stating that Rumblefish has the rights to the music and that would be the end of it.
Anyone else know about this? Has YouTube changed their position? I was under the impression that YouTube was pulling videos for copyright infringement if the music conflicted with their third party deals.
Here’s a link to the previous thread and it’s worth reading the comments. GoDigital Thread
[Update 01-18-2012]
This was recently posted by Lee from Audiosparx and seems to answer the exclusivity question. Until Rumblefish or YouTube specifically answers some of these questions we will all be a bit in the dark.
Lee said:
YouTube’s stated requirement is that only holders of exclusive content can submit such content to their Content ID program.
By requiring exclusive content, this avoids the scenarios where Rumblefish earns money from music licenses sold by other libraries, and gives an affected client a clear path of who to communicate with if they receive an email notification that their video may have content that is owned or licensed by XYZ (e.g. the company they licensed the music track from).
In other words, YouTube is saying that the Library XYZ must be the ONLY licensing source for a track if they are submitting that track to YouTube’s Content ID program, not that the track is available for license at multiple libraries and Library XYZ happens to be the only library submitting the track to YouTube’s Content ID program.
——————–
[Update 08-12-2013]
FYI – The following companies are known to be involved with the YouTube Content ID Program:
AudioMicro
AudioSocket
AudioSparx “Internet royalties” program
CDBaby “Sync licensing” program
Crucial Music
Fine Tune Music
GoDigital & Social Media Holdings
IODA: Independent Online Distribution Alliance
Kontor New Media
Magnatune
Music Beyond
Music for Productions
The Orchard
The Music Bed
Rumblefish
SourceAudio
Just to clear up a few misunderstandings that are being posted here in the hopes that they don’t eventually become perceived as facts.
1. In regards to Art’s main question at the top of the thread, this issue has never been about taking videos down, it is about monetizing videos (placing adsense ads on top of the video) when the customer has already purchased the legal right to use the music in their video.
2. No, Rumblefish is definitely not the only company registered with the Youtube ContentID system. Anyone can register. I have seen up to 5 copyright notices on one youtube video. That is 5 separate companies claiming they own the music that the customer has legally licensed for use in the video.
3. What these companies earn are not royalties. They are a share of ad revenue. The person saying that 1 million ‘hits’ on a video equals $700 is just wrong. People have to actually click on an ad to generate any revenue, not just view the video. The amount earned will of course vary with content of the video, quality of the ads, etc.
4. In regards to Michael’s request for library owners to figure out a way to make it so the composers don’t get the ‘short end of the stick’, what exactly would you like us to do? Give our customers the short end of the stick instead? It is never ‘forward thinking’ to p**s off and alienate your customers.
When we sell a customer a license to use the music on Youtube they are purchasing the right to use it without fear of copyright notices and monetization from third party companies. These notices *really* piss off our customers. Our customers don’t want them, it creates a bad strike against their youtube account which can lead to deletion of their youtube account. It also makes it so they cannot monetize the video that they have created. It also covers their video with ads. And no matter what anyone says Youtube does not post ads on videos unless they have a copyright notice placed on it or unless the owner of the video is monetizing it himself.
Remember, the notices these customers are getting from Youtube are ‘copyright infringement notices’. No matter how many times these third party companies say “don’t worry about it, it doesn’t mean anything, just leave it as it is” it is still a copyright infringement notice that has direct negative consequences on the customer’s youtube account.
I think there is a huge misunderstanding among many composers about how this ContentID system actually works and what it does to the end user.
I don’t usually respond to threads on MLR but I had to delete another composer from our catalog today and I really don’t want to see all of these misunderstandings and in many cases outright untruths being posted about this subject. Library owners of course do not enjoy deleting a composer’s catalog after putting so much time into getting it online and promoting it but if I’m going to lose a customer because of the legal claims made on your music then I am no longer going to distribute your music.
-Mark
Thanks Mark, great reply and helps much in the demystification of this very confusing situation! I might just integrate it into the original post.
One thing I forgot to mention Art and it is the most important in my view,
According to the Youtube ContentID Terms of Service Agreement the individual or company uploading music into the ContentID system has to own the exclusive rights to the music they are uploading. That means record or publishing companies that completely own the rights or the individual composer themselves if they own their music outright.
It is not acceptable for anyone who does not own *exclusive* rights to the music to upload it. Unless your music is exclusive with these third party companies then they are not legally allowed to upload it into the system.
Read it for yourself
http://www.youtube.com/t/contentid
“Rights holders deliver YouTube reference files (audio-only or video) of content they own, metadata describing that content, and policies on what they want YouTube to do when we find a match.”
“Who should not use Content ID?
This program is designed for exclusive rights holders whose content is frequently uploaded to YouTube by the user community.”
Mark,
Fantastic post! Great information!
Your second post, even more so.
Quote: “It is not acceptable for anyone who does not own *exclusive* rights to the music to upload it. Unless your music is exclusive with these third party companies then they are not legally allowed to upload it into the system.”
So, unless you are signed exclusively with Rumblefish, Crucial, etc., they have no right to add your tracks to Youtube’s content ID system? Yet they are Non-exclusive libraries.
So, I have no worries of my tracks from any non-exclusive’s showing up on Youtube and making ad revenue. Unless, of course, they re-title the track first.
Maybe I am not getting it!? (Won’t be the first time!)
This is a great discussion! 🙂
You are correct up until where you say you do not have to worry about your music showing up in the ContentID system. Many of these companies upload your music without your permission and without the legal right to upload the music since they are non-exclusive libraries that do not own the rights to your music. Yet they still upload it and have built entire business models on illegally uploaded music both in regards to the system and in regards to not having permission from the actual rights owner.
In other words you definitely do have to worry about it and be very careful where you place your music.
Re-titling has nothing to with this since the ContentID system works off of matching audio waveforms. Again, this is not a royalty type system where they are looking at titles and earnings royalties per view. This is an audio waveform match system.
If you own the rights to your music you are the only person that can register your music with the Youtube ContentID system. All of these other companies are gaming the system. But keep in mind if you do register your music in the system you will have the same copyright infringement problems with music libraries that are licensing your music for use on Youtube.
Holy crap!
It seems as though the days of legal copyrights are just about over. As soon as your tune is out there, it’s fair game!
I’m putting my cash under my mattress and stocking up on canned goods tonight! 🙂
Thanks for the straight forward info Mark!
As many here are trying to place music with Crucial Music I just e-mailed Tanvi and Dan about this situation. Hopefully they will respond with their take on it.
I’m still pretty confused on this whole YouTube situation. I just licensed another track through Revostock, and another through Pond5, and it got me thinking. I actually have no idea who licensed the tracks, or what they are being used for, but what if these projects hit YouTube? I’ve never seen anything concerning agreements that these 2 libraries have with Youtube. So who gets paid out of Youtube’s Ad (Royalty) Fund? Should I be signing up with YouTube as a composer?
So lost on this. But as MichaelL said “Internet use of music is only going to grow.”
What about sites like Vimeo and many others?
I’m sure I have thousands of unclaimed dollars sitting out there! 🙂
(Or maybe Rumblefish just gets to claim all of it!)
Do you know for sure if you have songs being used on Youtube videos? You should find that out first. That can help you to build a case.
I don’t know for sure. Like I said, I’m not sure who is licensing, or which production my music is being placed with. I don’t know of any way to search on youtube, unless they happened to credit me in the text description. I was simply curious, and hoping to prepare myself better for the future.
This will help you man
http://www.rumblefish.com/id/youtube-content-id.php
Thanks DhruvaAliman! That did help clear some things up.
I guess, at least for now, if I stay away from rumblefish then I should not run into any conflicts with any of my other libraries. $1.99 per track? I think I’ll stay away. 🙂
1.99 per track only applies to people that want to use the song on youtube vids ONLY, from what I understand. And you get more than 1.99 because the vid will continue to monetize with your song on it. So for example if I pay 1.99 for your song and put it on a video that gets a million hits, that’s about $700 for you after rumblefish gets their cut.
How many youtube videos actually get one million hits?
Plus, if the payout is only $700, it’s not worth it, IMO, when you subtract the potential revenue that you lose from other libraries.
Over time if thousands of people are putting your music on videos the hits add up. Plus, if you are already selling your tracks non-exclusively there’s no conclusive evidence it would hurt your sales with other libraries unless in the rare case a library won’t sign music that is in content ID. But if you have albums on iTunes it might help your sales because youtube puts the sales link below the video. I’m with Rumblefish, but also in 20 other libraries, I only got rejected once by shockwave sound for having music in content ID. Also, you can be proactive and make your own videos and you don’t even have to pay $1.99 to put your music on them 🙂 I’m trying this out because every quarter my checks get bigger not smaller, I’m kinda new to this business, about two and a half years in with the licensing. But Rumblefish is the only library for me where the money gets bigger not smaller, or random.
Quote: “Also, you can be proactive and make your own videos and you don’t even have to pay $1.99 to put your music on them ”
But do you then get the royalties associated with the ad revenue?
This is where my initial post was going (kind of). So Rumblefish is the only “Youtube partner” that has a content ID system? What if I was to direct market a collection of tracks myself to the “Youtuber’s” of the world? Would I receive the royalties directly?
Very soon, every video known to man is going to be online. Youtube, Vimeo, etc. It’s good enough for Crucial to be in bed with Rumblefish! Why would they do it, if there isn’t a future boatload of cash at the end?
This may very well turn out to be the future of all backend royalties!
“Do I wait for that 7 second late night placement on the Logo channel and make 20 cents, or do I have a better chance that someone’s cute kitten video gets 2000 hits?”
@Metatagteam, The funny thing is your original question never really got an answer. I had often thought exactly what your question was about.
Haven’t read all of this, but thought I’d just post here and advise anyone else having this problem to check what libraries you have your tracks with and if those libraries have any other distribution deals.
I uploaded some of my tracks to youtube to test it out and found 2 of my tracks came back saying Rumblefish owns them. I don’t have any tracks with Rumblefish, but have some tracks with Crucial who are a partner of Rumblefish.
I emailed Crucial and they said they sent out communications to advise they have a distribution deal with them, so they added any music I had with Crucial to youtube finger print system. Both Crucial and Rumblefish were quick in responding and removed my tracks from the system when I asked them.
Hope that helps in case anyone has the same issue
Licensing Companies need to work together and find a solution rather than us composers getting the raw deal.
Non-exclusive should mean just that, however, it seems that phrase is becoming more of a grey area these days.
Composers have to learn to establish relationships with companies. This involves regular communication with libraries. Many of us have been told to send it and forget it. That is a very detrimental move!
Composers have to be vigilant and ask questions. Many of us lose because we do not want to ask questions. We have been conditioned to thinking that asking questions amounts to whining or harassing a company. But asking legitimate questions is in the best interest of the composer.
Being passive will get you passed over. Stay inspired and stay hungry. Royalties don’t fall from the sky and licensing fees do not grow on trees. 🙂
Hi Art,
There are a couple of threads here dealing with monetizing our catalogs via youtube.
Some libraries are apparently dropping writers who participate in programs that monetize tracks used on youtube. One thread mentions Shockwave. The last time that visited MusicLoops’ site it sated that writers would be dropped if ML received a content notice from youtube.
It seems that writers have two options:
1) Only put a portion of their catalog into libraries that don’t wan’t to deal with the youtube issue. And, reserve those tracks for only those libraries, or
2) Do not deal with libraries that are dropping writers over this issue.
Obviously, number one is the lesser of two evils. Neither scenario is particularly beneficial to writers, who are giving up opportunities either way.
Internet use of music is only going to grow.
Any thoughts from library owners how this can be worked out so writers don’t get the short end of the stick? In most cases, I’d be very hesitant to put tracks intro a library that isn’t forward thinking.
Can anyone provide an overview of the situation?
Thanks,
Michael
Hi Michael,
I just moved this from General Questions to here to avoid this thread becoming more unwieldy then it already is! -:)
For me, I’m happy sticking with MusicLoops.com as it’s the only one of two RF sites that consistently makes me money every month. Mark has some distribution deals and I would imagine that he will eventually have more.
I also think that this issue is very fluid and no one really knows how it will play out. Another good reason to hold on to our copyrights!
Thanks Art.
It’s complex!
Michael
MichaelL, One solution I thought of to this whole mess is–
The libraries can get a coalition together to convince
youtube to invite all music libraries to register with youtube and when an uploader’s video gets matched (which is always immediately) youtube will then ask the uploader- “What music library did you license this music from?” Lets say, it’s a song from Bjorn’s library but that song is also in Rumblefish. The uploader tells youtube he got it from Bjorn. Well then Bjorn looks legit and doesn’t have to worry, and the uploader doesn’t have to worry about getting a scary email. Also, the uploader knows what to expect as far as ads and monetization. Because Bjorn gets to choose how his library content is monetized. Bjorn says to youtube- “I don’t want those goofy bar “Overlay Ads” on the bottom of my customer’s videos.” Maybe Bjorn just wants a “side ad”, or “after ad” (which he explains to his customers will happen when they visit his site).
Or maybe Bjorn is happy with just a one time buyout fee from his customers on his “royalty free” site and he doesn’t want any revenue from youtube. Lord knows he ain’t getting any right now. But maybe Bjorn will choose to opt in later to get some of the ad share if a customer becomes a partner (which Bjorn will also explain to his customers before they buy). Bjorn is free to choose how he structures his deal with youtube and his customers. And the customers are free to choose which library they want to deal with based on how each library has their deal laid out. The Buyer will ask himself-
Will this library put ads on our near my video or not?
Will this library allow me to monetize as a youtube partner or not?
Will this library take a share of my partner revenue or not?
The Buyer chooses what library to buy from. The freedom to CHOOSE is KEY.
The Nobel prize winning economist Milton Freedman wrote a bestselling book called “Free to Choose” in which he demonstrates quite clearly that economies thrive when people are free to choose. There is more for everybody when there is more choice. Our economy is not a finite pie where everybody scrounges for a slice until there is none left. No. Our economy bakes more pie when there is more freedom of choice. Choice leads to more creativity, more production and more music being used.
Music Buyers may use one library for one youtube project, and another library for a different youtube project, depending one what their projects are. This is better than them just giving up on doing some of their projects because the licensing system is to rigid and non-optional to accommodate them.
This issue sounds like a lot of technological hocus pocus. Nobody other than big name companies will be making any money from this.
I beg to differ SP, the top ten youtube partner earners-
http://socialtimes.com/money-youtube-partners_b21335
It’s any man’s game
I don’t think you understand why they make money from Youtube. All of those guys are video creators, not music composers. They make money from having millions of views from their video content. No one composing library music is making $100, let alone over $100,000 from having music on Youtube.
I guess if I make a few hundred videos, add my music to them and get millions of viws, I could make a few hundred thousand too.
The youtube partner rate is about $1.50 per 1,000 views.
Good luck getting one hundred million views ($150,000).
^ Exactly!
All of these companies are fighting over fractions of a cent here. Youtube is only going to make significant money for big companies with a few other guys getting some good money here and there.
Composers need not worry about this and keep seeking ways to make money from their music. Don’t get distracted by these “games”.
This band probably spent two days putting together this vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo0Cazxj_yc
34 million hits in a year. If they were with RF they’d get half the dough which would be at least $17,000 in one year, not bad for just a couple days work. You can make vids like that because of “transformational use” and “fair use” laws.
Here’s a vid that probably took less than 5 minutes to make and it’s got 24 million views.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV8eiSA4vqc
Granted they have a lot of fans but there are vids with just still pics that get s***loads of views without any built in any fanbase.
If you think creatively and take advantage of the opportunities out there you can make this work. But if you’re not going to think creatively and just poo poo it, then yeah, this ain’t the game for you.
I’ll let you know when I make my first $100,000 😉
Thanks for the additional information. This Youtube video thing could be huge for someone here! Hopefully you guys participate and start getting those videos out there. It would be awesome to hear how someone who posts here was able to monetize their music through internet video.
This program at GoDigital and YouTube is definitely not a “game”. AudioSparx has hundreds of artists participating in our Internet Royalties program, of which GoDigital and YouTube are a component, and the top-earning tracks earn generally between $1000 to $2000 per year. My advise to artists is to not discount the importance of earning performance-based recurring revenue from Internet uses, it will only grow over time.
Regards,
Lee Johnson
lee@audiosparx.com
Straight up, Lee.
Lee,
Somewhere this thread started of talking about Rumblefish, audioswap and Youtube, and then there were several posts about people getting dropped by libraries, including Shockwave because of Youtube issues.
This is starting to get complicated because there are overlapping issues including, but not limited to the following:
1) AudioSparx won’t deal with writers who sign with Rumblefish, but will monetize tracks through Youtube in a similar manner.
2) Shockwave is dropping writers who monetize through Youtube, BUT… Bjorn Lynne (Shockwave) is one of AS top selling artists. I assume then that he opted out of internet royalties.
I would really appreciate it it if you, Bjorn and Mark (PIR / Music Loops) would weigh in on this issue.
Is there a way that royalty free libraries can keep their customers happy without diminishing
composers’ opportunities to monetize their catalog?
Best regards,
Michael
It is a little complicated. AudioSparx does NOT accept new applicants that sell via RumbleFish and various other sites because we believe they are under-pricing music excessively, devaluing the industry and leading a race-to-the-bottom mentality. Our position on this has nothing to do with GoDigital, YouTube or Internet Royalties.
AudioSparx does operate its own Internet Royalties program to monetize Internet uses of the music of our composer community. GoDigital and YouTube are valued partners in this program.
To clarify the requirements for our Internet Royalties program, artists that wish to participate may only participate with tracks that they are licensing exclusively at AudioSparx.
Any artist that does not have exclusive tracks here is not eligible to participate.
Regarding this: “Is there a way that royalty free libraries can keep their customers happy without diminishing
composers’ opportunities to monetize their catalog?”
the answer is a resounding YES! Any affected client may request that we demonetize their video so that they can either have it permanently demonetized, or monetize it for their own benefit. Demonetizing typically happens within an hour of any request, hence it is not a cumbersome or lengthy process.
Frankly we rarely receive such requests, and we currently have over 33,000 videos monetized for the benefit of our participating composers. As long as the videos remain online, they earn residual recurring revenue for the composers here.
Thanks Lee.
You’ve answered some of the questions that I just posed over in the general questions thread.
From what you’re saying it’s fairly easy to take care of affected clients. Thus, I am left to conclude that the libraries dropping writers do not have the human resources, or inclination, to take the steps to demonetize tracks when a client has a problem.
As I said in that post, writers are left with two choices.
Thanks,
Michael
And… does anyone really aspire to have their music as part of that dreck?
I make my music for people to use and enjoy. Every time someone puts my song on their video, that makes me really happy.
If that’s dreck, count me in.
Can anyone tell me if this Content ID match problem only appears with Music in audioswap?
I have a lot of music with RF but not all of my stuff is on through audioswap. If this is the case I can just remove these audioswap tracks from other libraries and shouldn’t have a problem with content matches in the future.
am i right?
It’s not just audioswap, ANY music of yours that youtube’s content ID system recognizes will be monitized and a email will be sent to the uploader saying-
“Dear xxxx,
Your video, xxxx, may have content that is owned or licensed by Rumblefish.
No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.
Sincerely,
– The YouTube Team”
However, for instance, all my music is in the Rumbleish content ID thing and all my music in also in a bunch of other libraries and I have not gotten any real complaints from other libraries or music buyers about the fact that the uploader cannot monitize their video because my song is on it. I give away my music to people that want to use it on youtube videos because they monitize for me, whether or not those songs are actually in audioswap, they’re still making me money.
The only problem I had was with one library http://www.Shockwave-Sound.com -Bjorn Lynne
He is the only one that refuses my music based on the fact I’m in Youtube’s content ID
Nevertheless more libraries keep accepting me.
If people don’t want an ad on their video they can put it on vimeo or some other place.
And the bottom line is this-
You can sell your music royalty free for a small upfront fee
and make money on top of that through youtube.
OR
You can sell your music royalty free for a small upfront fee to maybe 5%-10% fewer buyers, and NOT make money off youtube.
I think the former is better, especially if your tracks are on iTunes and Amazon, because every video that has a content match has a link to buy the track under the video. (if the track is for sale)
So basically any music that goes through RF ends up with youtubes content Id system? IN which case the only way to avoid the issue is to Not send RF any more tunes or Remix the ones I have and perhaps give them different names.
I’ve now lost 2 good companies from this issue,which is through no fault of my own nor the licensing company. Not very fair.
I don’t know if remixing would help because if just a few seconds of your songs are the same it still might show in Content ID. I added a beat to a beatless song and it still was a match. You’re better off just making new songs than remixing old ones.
I know how you feel about it not being fair.
Since this thing is just at the very beginning of sorting itself out, I think the question right now is not what’s fair, but what is the best option at the moment. One could argue it’s not fair for the music buyer that doesn’t know they won’t be able to monitize their youtube video with the music they just bought. What is fair is such a grey zone right now because of the evolving situation. This whole content ID thing will be guided by the market and a lot of things are going to change in this business. Right now it’s chaos, the wild west and I think it will get worse before it gets better.
The best thing for you to do is call or email Rumblefish and tell them you lost two libraries. I did that and Paul Anthony the CEO of RF got on the phone with me and explained his vision of how he sees this unfolding in the future. A conversation with RF will help you make an informed decision.
I’m curious bmk, what libraries dropped you?
I must be clear that i dont want to bad mouth RF, after all the lions share of my earnings comes through them, however I think they do need to look into the issue that myself and other composers are having.
Having other revenue streams shut down because of the youtube ID issue is not beneficial to the composers, and we do work hard! It reflects badly on us I feel, and I wish not to be “black listed” just because my music is with a certain company etc.
Id rather not specifically mention individual libraries that i’ve had this problem with, but one of them was a UK based company. Although my earnings from them are not massive they still contribute and they are a nice bunch of people to work with. Also, as a UK library I can earn £’s rather than $’s. As a uk resident nearly all my income from music is in $’s and its always hit really hard by the bad exchange rate! So any GBP earnings are welcome!
I’m only here on a day pass and really wanted to clarify the issue with others. RF very very rarely respond to my emails. I may just give them a call though.
I’ve removed my post that was here as it was based on assumptions rather than facts. Sorry Lee.
This is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE:
“GoDigital has been marking songs sent to them by Audiosparx as being owned by Rumblefish”.
GoDigital would never do such a thing, it is definitely not in their interest to do such a thing. We are investigating the situation and will provide more info as it becomes available. It may take some time because there are multiple companies involved here. Stuart opted-in to participate in our Internet Royalties program when it was started in 2009, that is why his tracks were exported initially to GoDigital. Per Stuart’s request from today, we have submitted a take-down request to GoDigital to remove his tracks from the program.
Regards,
Lee@AudioSparx.com
I ran into a problem today. Someone purchased one of my tracks through Shockwave Sound and recieved a warning from youtube saying that Rumblefish owns my music. The song they purchased is not even available through Rumblefish but it got flagged anyway. Not sure what the deal is here. I’m awaiting a reply from Rumblefish.
Yeah, well I am with Rumblefish and I just got the following email–
“Hi Dhruva,
I hope you’re well. I was getting close to adding your music to Shockwave-Sound.com and as a part of that, I just make a little test video and upload it to YouTube – with some of your music.
Unfortunately, I received an email from YouTube saying that your music is owned by Rumblefish and now advertising is appearing on my video.
Dhruva, this is a major problem for me. I can’t use your music so long as it generates “owned by Rumblefish” messages to my customers. We cannot have a situation where a customer buys music from us, uses it, and is then told that the music belongs to somebody else. It makes us look really bad. It makes us look like we’re not legit, and I simply can’t have that.
An additional problem is that customers who use your music and get that Rumblefish ownership message, are unable to monetize their own videos by harvesting ad-share money — because ad-share on that video is already covered. 🙁 So basically, the serious YouTube video creators can’t collect ad money on their own videos if your music is in that video.
I’m really sorry Dhruva, but so long as your music is hampered by the “owned by xx” messages to YouTube uploaders, and monetized via YouTube fingerprinting programs such as Rumblefish, I can’t use your music. Sorry about that.
—
Kind regards,
Bjorn Lynne – Lynne Publishing
http://www.Shockwave-Sound.com (Royalty Free Music)
http://www.1SoundFX.com (100,000+ Royalty Free Sound Effects)”
So I forwarded that to Rumblefish and they said they wanted to talk to Bjorn and told me “Rumblefish still definitely supports the non-exclusive model of music licensing and we hope that you are able to get your music out there and used in as many ways as possible. It is clear that social media uses are a huge part of the future of music licensing, and artists that have their music in the Content ID systems of YouTube and other sites stand to capitalize on the use of their music. We see the issues that most clients have as more of a YouTube education problem than a licensing problem, and we hope that we can be part of the education of users and music licensing.”
My solution to this whole mess is–
youtube could invite all music libraries to register with youtube and when an uploader’s video gets matched (which is always immediately) youtube will then ask the uploader- “What music library did you license this music from?” Lets say, it’s a song from Bjorn’s library but that song is also in Rumblefish. The uploader tells youtube he got it from Bjorn. Well then Bjorn looks legit and doesn’t have to worry, and the uploader doesn’t have to worry about getting a scary email. Also, the uploader knows what to expect as far as ads and monetization. Because Bjorn gets to choose how his library content is monetized. Bjorn says to youtube- “I don’t want those goofy bar “Overlay Ads” on the bottom of my customer’s videos.” Maybe Bjorn just wants a “side ad”, or “after ad” (which he explains to his customers will happen when they visit his site).
Or maybe Bjorn is happy with just a one time buyout fee from his customers on his “royalty free” site and he doesn’t want any revenue from youtube. Lord knows he ain’t getting any right now. But maybe Bjorn will choose to opt in later to get some of the ad share if a customer becomes a partner (which Bjorn will also explain to his customers before they buy). Bjorn is free to choose how he structures his deal with youtube and his customers. And the customers are free to choose which library they want to deal with based on how each library has their deal laid out. The Buyer will ask himself-
Will this library put ads on our near my video or not?
Will this library allow me to monetize as a youtube partner or not?
Will this library take a share of my partner revenue or not?
The Buyer chooses what library to buy from. The freedom to CHOOSE is KEY.
The Nobel prize winning economist Milton Freedman wrote a bestselling book called “Free to Choose” in which he demonstrates quite clearly that economies thrive when people are free to choose. There is more for everybody when there is more choice. Our economy is not a finite pie where everybody scrounges for a slice until there is none left. No. Our economy bakes more pie when there is more freedom of choice. Choice leads to more creativity, more production and more music being used.
Music Buyers may use one library for one youtube project, and another library for a different youtube project, depending one what their projects are. This is better than them just giving up on doing some of their projects because the licensing system is to rigid and non-optional to accommodate them.
Here’s a copy of the e-mail YouTube sends to video producers who use music purchased somewhere else but also represented by Rumblefish for YouTube.
———————
Dear xxxx,
Your video, xxxx, may have content that is owned or licensed by Rumblefish.
No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.
Sincerely,
– The YouTube Team
Hey Art, even though I’m with Rumblefish, go digital somehow got my songs and retitled the artist name, not the track name, and put them in the audioswap library under a different band name “audio masters” which encompassed other artists as well. But I talked to my Rumblefish rep and she said–
“It looks like Rumblefish is actually receiving the payments for any ad revenue from tracks added by GoDigital, since your tracks are thumbprinted as Rumblefish being the “owner”. Its just that it looks like GoDigital uploaded them into the YouTube system.”
SHE ALSO SAID–
“I cannot really do a whole lot about another library using your music. However, we will be taking over “ownership” of songs in the APM library that Go Digitial represents in the coming months. In the meantime I can switch the artist name Audio Masters to your name if you would like?”
So she took care of the problem. I didn’t appreciate Go Digital using my music under a different artist name. I never even heard of “Audio Masters”
Interesting, thanks Dhruva!
And also what happens if your music is used, there will be one of those little ads at the bottom of the video. That means someone is getting payed and they don’t want the video taken down.