Off course, thanks
From the wording here, “must not contain”, it seems to me, “royalty-free” is referring to loops, construction kits, or any music snippets that you did not compose/create yourself, which you can’t use in a track you want to register.
This makes perfect sense for the audio fingerprinting technology, as those would produce loads of false positive.
It doesn’t say anything about so called “royalty-free music”, which we supposedly sell on here. This royalty-free status has very little actual signification. And there is no real reason for treating our music separately nor for refusing us access to this technology, other than ill informed discrimination.
4 Likes
Yes, re-reading it, you’re absolutely right about this referring to submitted track content, so apologies for any confusion.
I do think this apparent discrimination however (or rather selective approval) is in direct response to significant changes at YouTube’s end over the past year or so.
Since the whole YouTube ‘adpocalypse’ fiasco, along with a myriad of other well documented issues regarding copyright, artist royalty payments, Article 13/17, etc, Google/YouTube has really started cracking down to fill all it’s little loopholes and minimize it’s responsibility in certain areas. The big, ongoing expansion of YT’s own ‘copyright free’ audio library (Google have been outsourcing artists to create music to put into their library, whilst retaining the copyrights) and continued top-hit promotion of ‘contentID free’ subscription based libraries on Google Search is telling enough.
This has no doubt directly affected third party monetization platforms reliant on YT/ContentID and as a result it seems the bigger CID platforms are becoming much more refined and selective on who they take on board as clients, in order to streamline their businesses, whilst fully appeasing YouTube.
It seems the massive influx of mass, generic and licensable RF assets over the years has become deemed ‘high-risk’, being subject to more disputes, copyright/ownership issues and generating more user complaints, which of course YouTube is wishing to keep to a minimum.
As I mentioned previously, it does seem the focus from established CID platforms is now on more unique, independent consumer music and existing published, rights managed catalogues, including RF. I understand this to being the main reason for these changes.
4 Likes
On the other hand such a massive number of tracks with problematic copyright verification and royalties tracking makes such institutions like EU want to repair the system. Youtube will have to deal with it sooner or later OR it will lose monopoly in such a huge IT market as EU. It can ban temporarily RF in CID but it can not ban usage of it, especially when subscription models grow so quickly.
3 Likes
So… identifyy or AdRev, what are we saying???
Please excuse my naivety, I’m new to all this, but does it monitor all uploaded music or just YouTube?
Thanks
Though they say they also work with Facebook, I’ve only seen results for YouTube at AdRev.
AdRev does not take new applicants from AJ. Identifyy seems to be open to us for now, so…
Interesting podcast featuring Ryan Born and the whole AdRev story:
https://arkona.io/blog/2018/07/19/the-ability-to-pivot-a-home-run-exit-story
1 Like
I joined Identifyy about a month ago, and I started seeing Screen Cards’ Ads with advertising to “monetize your videos” by Identifyy on my YouTube videos. Although my channel is whitelisted, I don’t know why those cards appeared. I asked them to remove them and today I got an email saying they can’t have music in Content ID that is advertised as “Royalty Free Music” and that I should change my video descriptions or they would have to remove these tracks from Content ID. I explained what “royalty free” music means and that I didn’t want to change the descriptions because they explain to a possible buyer what royalty free music means. Waiting for the reply…
Very interesting, though a bit alarming.
It’s clear that YouTube doesn’t want to deal with “royalty free music”, whatever it means to them. Which is the reason why most ContentID third-parties do not want to register us AJ authors.
From what I gathered from your post, Identifyy is willing to keep their doors open for us, as long as we don’t advertise our music as “royalty free”.
I don’t think your explaining what royalty-free actually means would change their stance, as the only thing that matters to them is YouTube own definition.
Personally, I think having access to this crucial tool is much more important than to hang on to a term that has a different meaning for the majority of our buyers.
Yes, loops and construction kits in Content ID are a MAJOR problem.
This has become so bad that one major construction kit distributor has a standard Content ID letter posted on their site that their customers can use in the case of copyright claims. This same distributor’s license clears use of their construction kits for library music as derivative works and I’ve heard their loops in MANY libraries, including AJ. When libraries put these tracks in Content ID, and they usually do, the result is a disaster. Even though a library usually creates a track with only some loops from a kit and it’s not using an entire kit, it’s often enough to find matches to other tracks.
1 Like
That’s because they are Youtube’s CID partner (same as AdRev, etc.), they do not set CID rules, they have to obey Youtube. In the last “AdRev client update” I have found so called new Youtube’s CID requirements which disallows stock music. That’s quite important for us.
Got the reply from Identifyy:
“I checked with our admin team and as long as it says “Royalty Free” or “Copyright Free” it is ok. It cannot say “Free” or “Creative Commons” so you are ok with having “Royalty Free” in your description.”
And then they removed their ad card from my videos and finally whitelisted my channel.
7 Likes
Hi @WavebeatsMusic. I’m interested in hearing how Identifyy is working out for you. Hope it’s going well. Thanks!
1 Like
hey @MidnightSnap, so far so good. I have registered all my tracks and will continue to do so. All tracks have been accepted with no problems at all. The first tracks took 1 day to be “LIVE IN THE SYSTEM” as they call, but now, it only takes a couple of hours. I guess they might have a system like those automated “trusted approved” like we have in AJ.
I was expecting to receive tons of complaints from customers. but to my surprise, not at all. I guess professionals deal with that every day, so no big issue here. However, I did (and still do) receive messages (mainly on the descriptions of my videos on YouTube) from everyone who is using my music without a valid license. That’s because they ALL have received copyright notices. If they don’t clear their videos (which they CAN’T! since they haven’t got a license), I will start to monetize on their videos).
The funny thing is that they are all rude and they actually think we are wrong! can you believe it?
I also have to explain over and over again that RF music is NOT the same as free music…ohh boy…They simply don’t read!
I will have much more info at the end of the quarter when Identifyy updates the REPORTS tab!
I HIGHLY recommend every single RF composer to register. I feel a lot safer now.
Hope it helps
7 Likes
Had the same experience. Only got heat from non-buyers. I was threatened several times to be reported to Youtube for lying about my music being royalty-free. At first, I tried to reason with them and explain that the royalty part of the word had a meaning, and that it just didn’t mean free music. After years of insults, I gave up, and now I sell “music for media” instead. No more insults!.. Never had issues with real buyers though.
Also:
Why would it be ok if it said “copyright free”. How can you register such a track if there is no copyright whatsoever? These people have no idea what they are dealing with nor seem to understand the basic definitions pertaining to their work environment. A bit alarming if you ask me.
2 Likes
I agree with you! omg… of course it is NOT “Copyright free”. We are registering our tracks exactly because we are the copyright holders!
1 Like
Yes! Too much confusion out there…
1 Like
Thanks @WavebeatsMusic! This does help. Glad to hear it’s going smoothly so far for you. I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit, but I’ve been hesitant due to potential complaints and extra administration time to resolve issues, etc. It sounds like the process is not too burdensome though. Thanks again. This has opened my eyes! 
2 Likes
no problem. happy to help.