Heads Up - YouTube "royalty-free" licensing issues

Guy S. wrote on 5/16/2012, 2:16 PM

We licensed “royalty free” music for use in a product video that was posted on YouTube. Yesterday we received a notice from YouTube stating that our video contained copyrighted material and would have ads placed next to it. The vendor, Footage Firm, verified today that they DO have a contract with BFM Digital, an asset management company, to assist in the identification and monetization of their music on YouTube.

I disputed the claim and then did a little research. Apparently a number of "royalty-free" music resellers are going after YouTube ad revenue by registering their music with YouTube's Content ID service and claiming rights to collect royalties. In some cases companies are fraudulently registering works that they did not create and YouTube's dispute process does not provide a way to deal with this.

This could be a huge issue if you are using stock music in content produced for clients or if you generate income from ads associated with video content that you've created.

We obviously cannot have competing branding messages associated with our products and I'm actively seeking alternate vendors who's licensing agreement specifically states that "royalty free" means royalty free AND who have registered their music with YouTube so that others cannot falsely claim it as their own.

So far I've found one vendor that explicitly states on their website that they do not collect ad revenue and I've followed up via e-mail to verify that their licensing agreement explicitly states this as well.

Relevant links:
http://www.royaltyfreemusiclibrary.com/YouTube
http://fairusetube.org/youtube-copyfraud
http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/music-news/royalty-free-stock-music-for-youtube.html (3rd paragraph, 2nd sentence)
http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!searchin/youtube/BFM/youtube/s-XHDbJelfA/8Jes7qbzuZcJ

Comments

Andy_L wrote on 5/16/2012, 3:19 PM

I believe stockmusicsite.com specifically offers licenses for commercialized YouTube use, in case you're not aware of them.

It kind of makes sense that RF music publishers would try to get revenue on both ends--but it sure is a shady practice!

Laurence wrote on 5/16/2012, 3:34 PM

Thanks for the heads up. I got started in music but have been using royalty free music lately mostly out of time constraints and laziness. Maybe there is a market for my music after all. I do feel like any ad revenue should be given to the producer of the video, not somebody who is trying to earn a second set of royalties on their intellectual property.

Laurence wrote on 5/16/2012, 3:35 PM

Maybe there is a market for free production music where the sole way that they make money is on advertising revenue when the videos with that music is played.

farss wrote on 5/16/2012, 5:01 PM

"It kind of makes sense that RF music publishers would try to get revenue on both ends--but it sure is a shady practice!"

Personally I would define it as an illegal practice, the word fraud comes to mind.
One simply cannot sell a product under one set of terms and then change them.
That said, despite having bought a couple of Footage Firm's "free" collections they've always struck me as being dodgy and what they offer is worth about what you pay for it.

Bob.

Guy S. wrote on 5/16/2012, 7:16 PM

<I believe stockmusicsite.com specifically offers licenses for commercialized YouTube use, in case you're not aware of them.>

Thanks for the link. I read their license agreement and it seems standard - just like Footage Firm and others. The agreement clearly states that they will not collect additional royalties from ME, but it doesn't contain language that specifically prohibits them (or the third parties from whom they have licensed some of their music) from collecting royalties directly from YouTube.

When clients begin getting copyright notices from YouTube, and ads - possibly from competing companies - appear with their videos, things could get very ugly. I would not want to be in the position of having to explain this to a client who would likely hold me responsible.

danv wrote on 5/17/2012, 7:08 AM

I have a very large amount of underwater video on YouTube, all with music tracks from Sonic fire Pro/SmartSound.com . This is all supposed to be mine to use as I want, no issues with anyone... However, on most videos I upload to Youtube, initially there is a notification that this matches 3rd party content, and I "may" be seeing ads run here or some other nonsense in the future....Typically, this notification goes away in time....I do not believe any ads have ever run on my stuff...I have complained a few time about the lie of the matched content.... Probably I need to take this up with SmartSound.com ????

Guy S. wrote on 5/17/2012, 1:20 PM

<<Probably I need to take this up with SmartSound.com>>

I would definitely advise them of the situation and ask for their help. At least one royalty free vendor in YouTube's user forum is actively fighting claims made by 3rd parties for works that he has licensed to producers.

Registering music that you have absolutely do not own with YouTube's Content ID system and collecting royalties is apparently the newest online scam. A couple of the companies doing this are located in Russia, so good luck dealing with them.

On a positive note, I just received this notice in an e-mail from BFM Digital: "Sorry for your inconvenience, we just released the claim of the video."

gpsmikey wrote on 5/17/2012, 11:14 PM

There have been quite a few issues along these lines - we have been seeing it over in the Photodex Proshow forums as well. A number of the people who have created the royalty free music (like Kevin McLeod- http://incompetech.com/ ) has been having his stuff that he produced claimed as belonging to someone else. There has been quite a bit of this going on recently from the other reports I have been hearing where these companies out there are claiming they have the rights to music that they do NOT have rights to, they just are claiming it and seeing how many people they can get to give them royalties (unless of course you are using music from folks on their "protected" list. I have seen several discussions where the theory was that some of this is simply to drive the RF independents who don't go through them out of business. I don't know how much validity there is to that theory, but there are a lot of people being "notified" their legitimate RF music belongs to someone else (which it doesn't).

mikey

Guy S. wrote on 5/18/2012, 12:51 PM

<<So far I've found one vendor that explicitly states on their website that they do not collect ad revenue and I've followed up via e-mail to verify that their licensing agreement explicitly states this as well. >>

Here's the relevant portion the response I received from royaltyfreemusic.com. FYI, the response came back from "Pump-MusicRFM@gettyimages.com":

"...While we won’t collect performance royalties on any channel, including YouTube, we may monetize the use of our music on YouTube by sharing in their ad revenue. Additionally, we do plan to register our music on their Content ID system, but we have not yet done so and we are not 100% sure when that will happen."

I am currently looking at sourcing music for 18 of our currently shipping product videos. But even if I redo our current videos with new music, there are many more instances of each video that have been posted by others and these are out of my direct control. And then there is the issue of legacy videos that we are not going to redo.

I think that this is going to become a huge issue going forward and I'm wondering what we can do to head this off. Any ideas?

NickHope wrote on 5/19/2012, 1:16 AM

I'm not surprised this has happened, as I felt there had to be a hitch with all these super-cheap giveaways from Footage Firm. I'm afraid I have no easy solutions for you, other than disputing the claims as they arise, and in the future using "youtube-safe" music. Establishing suppliers of such music is a big challenge though.

Guy, just to be clear in regards to the problem track from Footage Firm, was it licensed by royaltyfreemusic.com or by royaltyfreemusiclibrary.com? I have lots of tracks from Footage Firm and most of them have a licence from royaltyfreemusiclibrary.com, as included on the disc (but incidentally, Footage Firm have told me that other of their tracks that I downloaded, or were on discs without a licence, are covered by their own licence at http://www.footagefirm.com/license-agreement).

Do you mind letting me know which track triggered the claim (perhaps by PM if you'd rather not share it here)? I have 3 tracks from Footage Firm in forthcoming YouTube videos that are already edited and scheduled to publish, and as a YouTube partner it's important that they don't raise claims, or that claims are promptly dropped.

Also, was your email from BFM in response to a direct email to them, or did it come simply as a result of your claim?

I will email Footage Firm for clarification, and also make a test upload of my 3 tracks to see if they trigger a claim.

NickHope wrote on 5/19/2012, 2:25 AM

I made 3 test uploads. The 2 videos with tracks covered by a licence on the DVD from royaltyfreemusiclibrary.com both matched third-party content from BFM Digital. The 1 video with a track licensed directly by footagefirm.com did not raise a claim (yet).

larry-peter wrote on 5/19/2012, 9:13 AM

My quick comment is that I took advantage of one "special offer" from Footage Firm for some stock music, and when I began receiving other offers from them and other differently named companies that I learned were associated with FF, I started looking for reviews online - and I found a lot of complaints. From billing practices, credit card charges not halting when you "unsubscribe" after the free period and misleading claims about "rights of usage." I'm not comfortable using their materials currently. But I'm a overly cautious scaredy-cat where lawyers may be concerned.

gpsmikey wrote on 5/19/2012, 11:20 AM

You can't be a "overly cautious scaredy-cat where lawyers may be concerned." - even if you were on the other side of the planet when something happens, they may be able to prove that it is your fault because you weren't there to prevent it.

While I have purchased a number of disks from Footage Firm, I have not had any issues with billing etc (on the other hand, I have never tried any of their subscription stuff knowing how hard it can be to shut off the credit card). Typically the number you call to activate one of these things has thousands of "operators standing by", while the number you have to call to cancel it has one operator in Siberia that only comes in on Friday 13th.

mikey

bigrock wrote on 5/19/2012, 11:51 AM

I had the same issue using Sony Cinescore music and successfully fought it off. It was documented in this thread: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=805828

NickHope wrote on 5/20/2012, 6:27 AM

I got a reply from Scott Meath at Prolific Arts/royaltyfreemusiclibrary.com

If you have emailed youtubeclaims@bfmdigital.com with the videos you need clearance on, they will release any claims on them. It is very simple and usually only takes a couple of working days for it to be processed.

Guy S. wrote on 5/21/2012, 5:31 PM

I ordered the music from a Footage Firm URL (http://www.footagefirm.com/stock-music/corporate-business/mworld-biz-underscores-stock-music.html) but I believe the music was sourced from stockmusiclibrary.com because of the response I received from Footage firm:

"All licenses are on our discs. If YouTube is giving you trouble about using certain music you've purchased from us please read this: http://www.royaltyfreemusiclibrary.com/YouTube"

I sent an e-mail directly to BFM Digital using the language suggested in the web page referenced above.

The song in question is "Business As Usual".

NickHope wrote on 5/22/2012, 12:56 AM

Thanks Guy. I have the same track in my collection. It's good to know that the email to youtubeclaims@bfmdigital.com actually works, as Scott told me in his email, and it makes me pretty confident again in using their music.

I also emailed footagefirm.com about the tracks they licence directly (i.e. not through Prolific Arts / royaltyfreemusiclibrary.com). This is the reply I got:

"Those weren't purchased from Prolific Arts so it shouldn't be a problem. We are no longer selling Prolific Arts' music."

I would prefer something a bit more commital, but then I've never seen a license agreement that clearly stated "We will not block or monetize YouTube videos that use our music", so really just about any stock music is a risk without that clearly stated in the licence agreement.

MikeyDH wrote on 6/30/2012, 9:28 PM

I just received a BFM complaint from You Tube. Once again I sent in the dispute. The license agreement is written by Prolific Arts. The CD is clearly identified as being from Footage Firm and the Radical Music Library. We'll see if they, once again, back down on the claim. This stuff is gettin old.

NickHope wrote on 7/1/2012, 3:07 AM

MikeyDH, which track?

MikeyDH wrote on 7/1/2012, 8:04 AM

The track is called Indie Pop

MTuggy wrote on 7/2/2012, 12:58 AM

I think Youtube is wising up a bit. The first few times this happened, I had to respond to several emails, send in copies of my e-receipts, etc. Now I just filled out the only form, indicated where I purchased the music and I haven't heard back on any more requests for info. If they make it easy, I don't mind them double checking and letting the media companies deal with it if they want to look up who is using their music.

MT

NickHope wrote on 7/2/2012, 7:20 AM

Thanks MikeyDH. Did you just dispute the claim, or did you also email youtubeclaims@bfmdigital.com as per my previous post?

Please let us know the outcome, and now long it takes to get the claim released (or otherwise).

I doubt BFM Digital will change their policy, since they are probably doing quite nicely out of those who don't bother to dispute the claims. Let's hope they continue to release claims for those who dispute.

@MTuggy - Was that for music from FootageFirm, or somewhere else?

MikeyDH wrote on 7/2/2012, 10:30 PM

[iI]>"BFM Digital has reviewed your dispute and released its copyright claim on your video" [/i]

They released it today, Nick, thanks. I must have missed that link to the BFM site. I'll be sure to let them know the next time they lay claim to rights I pay for.

I agree with you on them when it comes to making money on those who don't dispute the claims..Why else would they go through the trouble?

JTC wrote on 7/5/2012, 5:38 PM

I have been following your blog and I also had the same problem with "royalty free" music from Footage Firm. I had the third party warning posted by my video, I took your advice and disputed their claim showing I had purchased the album from Footage Firm and the licensing info stated I could use the music free. A few minutes after I submitted the info, I rec'd an email shown below. So far the dispute approach seems to be working. Thanks for you help. JTC

Dear jtczere,

One or more music publishing rights collecting societies has reviewed your dispute and released its copyright claim on your video, "Islamorada Sport Fishing Aboard the Reel Sharp". For more information, please visit your Copyright Notice page

Sincerely,
- The YouTube Team