Adrev good or bad ?

I am with a Pro for collecting music royalties but I also decided to take the advantage of partnering with Adrev to earn royalties for my Youtube plays. The only thing is occasionally this has proved a pain for video clients. For instance, I have had an email from a music library because their client’s description at the bottom of their video states “AdRev for Rights Holder; AdRev Publishing” and they were concerned. Not sure why as it hasn’t affected the video or audio in any way as can sometimes happen if there is a conflict.

Just wondering what anyone else’s thoughts were on Adrev.

Adrev does not pay you royalties from Youtube. That’s your PRO’s job (though it seems only a few PROs do collect from Youtube as of now). Adrev pays you advertising revenues.

ContentID is the only protection against having our music pillaged. And it is massively pillaged. I’m a small time author with depressing sales, and yet my music is used in thousands of videos! For authors more successful than me, this is even more flagrant.

Now there are issues with AdRev:
-Their communication is cryptic and unhelpful
-They seem not to accept Audiojungle authors anymore (which is a huge problem!)
-They issue claims regardless of whether user has a license or not
-It affects your legitimate buyers as well as thieves. (same point as the previous one)
-There is now this “AdRev for Rights Holder; AdRev Publishing” snippet, and it’s not clear whether it goes away once the claim is lifted.

These problem are not solely specific to AdRev but to most ContentID third-parties as well.

So basically, I think it’s a crucial tool to keep control of our assets. But it is flawed. And I’m afraid it’s too late for newcomers. Should have joined years ago, Marb!

Thanks for that. A kind of necessary evil then. I have had music in circulation for the last 14 years, a lot of use in tv/video etc so I will stick with them. I have had pretty good response from my enquiries with them in the past. I have even asked for whitelisting of some content that I authorised and they were happy to oblige.

Oh, so you already are registered? If so this is great news for you, as it seems once you’re in, they don’t kick you out (for now)

Yes and I have almost called it quits because of the hassle with some buyers. Why would AJ authors be a problem to them ?

We don’t know for sure. The official reason is that it’s due to a new policy on YouTube’s end, regarding royalty-free music.

Supposedly AdRev now has to manually check that the user has a valid license before issuing the claim. This is too much work for them and so are not accepting more “royalty-free” applicant.

However this raises some (unanswered) questions, and it doesn’t seem to fit with some buyers’ experiences. So, we’re kept in the dark.

When I make a new track I always have the dilemma of “is this going to be a pro registered track or royalty free?”
as there seems to be less limits on using pro registered music these days (ie, letting it into the AJ catalogue)

Now that AJ allows PRO registered music, there is no reason no to register all your tracks.

My PRS earnings are quite erratic of late. I never know exactly how much I am going to get. Sometimes very very good and the next quarter a drop, as one would assume that the more music out there, repeats, channels, it would keep going up and up. Still, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. I think I will always register PRS in the future (and of course the ASCAP collect in the USA)

What’s the best process to avoid wrong claims on genuine buyers’ videos? I don’t know AdRev to be honest but I’ve never could understand how they differentiate real buyers from pirates on YouTube?

They don’t. Genuine buyers use their license certificate to lift the claim.