ID tracking is a good idea. Which will work not only with music, but with SFX either.
Video or screenshots are too much IMO.
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In my opinion to put a screenshot of the project is absolutely useless.
What if my project have 20 tracks? How do you fit in screenshot the whole track? And if reviewer never worked in a DAW? How he or she will understand where, when and what instrument begins to play?
Even if reviewer has the necessary knowledge and experience, the verification process will take too much time.
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You have to understand that Audiojungle is a special case @S-DKG . It can be a good source of income if an Author can provide music which can be used in many different end products. Due to the low prices quantity is king. Itās RF. Sadly, RF is oversaturated and this provides room for competition: Quality comes into action.
Many Audiojungle Authors have absolutely no idea how the (whole) market of music licensing is arranged. Those who know the value of their work offer their quality works to more prestigious libraries, who indeed have fixed prices, but these are significantly higher btw. If Envato wants to increase quality and get items like those to their site AND (thatās the big point here) wants be able to keep selling lower quality items, then they inevitably have to introduce a flexible price system.
You are right Myke, as I noticed in this topic people do not really see the difference between production library and RF library like AJ, where quantity is the king, as you say. Fast easy tracks, fast money, and thatās it. Thatās how this system works and I think its fine.
When people trying to demand rules, which may suites for production libraries, I see it like at first, people do not really understand where they working at, and second - really, really afraid of more and more incoming and growing competition because quantity is a king, like you said! Thatās why we have so many talks here about id verification and other stuff, despite I think it is a good idea, but must be applied for all authors, not just for newcomers in this case, like it happened with PRO. I am also raising my hand for track fingerprinting system, as I said above. Butā¦ DAW source file screens? Stems distribution? Really? People are coming up with more and more perverted ideasā¦
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Yeahā¦ Thatās why it doesnāt make sense to duscuss anything music licensing related on these forums.
ID check wouldnāt be wrong, but screenshots, source files, etc. are nonsense IMO.
I think the big problem with this thread is that it tries to discuss two different topics at once. Quality and piracy.
It is possible to analyze prices of the market and make ADP limits for each license.
Anyway, correct me if I wrong, but RF libraries are mostly made for a quick and cheap solution for more indie/semi-professional teams with low budget than for professional film and tv production companies, right? So If you say that Envato wants to expand AJ and transform into RF library with production libraries rules, (like @StudioKolomna wants), to satisfy big clients needs, how much authors will eventually lose their AJ accounts? Most of the production libraries are very, very selective ones, and lots of tracks here will be rejected even on the submission stage (some of my tracks probably too) 
Just to make things clear. āBig Clientsā not buying royalty free music, āBig Clientsā buy exclusive rights music.
So i think Envato donāt even mind about āBig Clientsā
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and to do that people to showing the license to the software with which I write music !!!
These are good ideas!
Iām now retired from full-time music and my day job is with a law enforcement agency as an analyst specializing in identity theft, cyber-crime and financial crime. Iām going to play devilās advocate on the photo ID portion of this thread.
Letās say that Envato starts requiring photo ID. What stops me from purchasing your music for $19 and then uploading it all over the place using a different name for the song on numerous other sites that donāt require photo ID?
Nothing.
When a site uses audio-marks, thieves can still purchase the files they will resell in order to remove the audio-mark. They can then sell it multiple times on multiple sites with multiple identities and make a lot of money for a small investment. That being the case, placing your music on a site that offers $19 licenses is what puts you in jeopardy. The less they have to pay, the bigger you are as a target. Most royalty free sites are charging much more now. That makes AJ a very good hunting ground.
But thereās more. What about people uploading stolen files to AJ? Canāt photo ID stop that here and on all those other music licensing sites?
NOPE!
If Envato canāt verify that the audio uploaded was actually composed by the person who uploaded it, and/or canāt verify that the person who uploaded it is the person on the photo ID, this is a waste of everyoneās time. All itās going to do is deter amateur thieves who canāt figure out how to effectively hide their identity, which is actually very easy to do. Presenting a false identity supported by photo ID, social media profiles, tax payer numbers, etc. is not at all difficult for an online criminal. Itās part of how they operate. That being the case, photo ID is not going to stop people from uploading stolen music here unless Envato decides to use a third party identity verification service with the tools to identify when a presented identity is likely to have been stolen or fabricated, and that would cost them money, plus require additional questions on their membership applications. They are not likely to do that because of the cost. They can simply rely on the limited liability clause in their membership agreement and DMCA take down notices to protect them from any possible legal action. That doesnāt cost them anything. The proper way to implement photo ID requirements just isnāt cost effective for them as a business since they arenāt the ones who would lose money from the theft. In fact, they appear to be keeping their share of the earnings from stolen files sold here. If they do start photo ID without also incorporating identity verification, it will be just to make you happy. It wonāt protect you. Keep in mind that if there is no audio signature recognition software running here, they wonāt even know if music you uploaded here was uploaded by a different person on this same site using a different title.That too has happened here.
You just have to decide if the risk of offering music on a site with extremely low licensing fees is worth it for you. If you can ignore the fact that you might be helping other people make money from your work, perhaps the risk is worth it. But again, Envatoās ultra low pricing is the vulnerability that is causing the problem hereā¦ actually, I should say āyour problemā because itās not hurting Envato in any way. I know there isnāt really much that can be done to stop this in the low budget market, so while I might offer my lesser quality, older catalog music on low budgets sites,Iām not going to offer my best work on a site with low rates because it will be an easy target.
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Speaking only for myself, I do NOT depend on AJ algorithms to make money or new customers. Itās neat when it happens, but I donāt count on it at all.
To my organization, AJ is a low-cost service that works an a licensing intermediary. Nothing more, nothing less.
With AJ, we can āaffordā to license to low-budget producers (which are high in number), but I develop those relationships outside of AJ, and our pitch is āFor a signup and a few bucks you get all your licensing handled and I donāt have to waste my attorneyās time.ā
My only complaint with the review process is having cues rejected that Iāve already āsoldā and I just need the darn thing online so I can start selling it - I donāt care if Envato thinks itās gonna be a hit or not.
There should be a āPrivate Libraryā option that you can upload tracks that donāt get included in the search so I can still market to my existing clients and bypass the approval process.
Some really good points made in the thread overall.
Much respect to all of you.
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@StudioKolomna How did you friends find their stolen music? Iām interested in hearing about what tools they, and any others use to identify stolen tracks on Envato and on other sites.
Hello! They received a letter from the support of Envato that their music is present on Pond5 and if they do not remove it, then their accounts will be blocked.
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Interesting, thank you!
This is a very good idea!
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Completely agree! Nice ideas.
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thanks, man =)
Iām not a developer, so I can not judge how a difficult task to do it (maybe itās really too difficult for Envato at this time), but I agree with @HuskyStudio, something like Shazam could solve the problem. Iād say it should be something like ContentID on YouTube, but without an automatic blocking (because itās evil), just notification in your account, so each author can easy see any infringements and send DMCA to the support in time. Also, each new author who decided to steal a music track from other authors to upload it on AJ, can see that is already on AJ and he can get problems. Or, if a new author sees that his music track is already on AJ, also can easy to send DMCA.
But how Iāve said before, I donāt know how real it for Envato to do something similar.
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If you agree with @HuskyStudio I guess you might want to read this:
There are a lot of systems and not so perverted, like DAW screenshots and others, which might still help protect Audiojungle content, from fingerprinting to ToppleTrack analog systems. Most of them work like ContentID on YouTube.
But there are lots of problems with implementing such a methods:
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This is technically and practically VERY complicated to apply for almost 500K tracks and sound effects
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This works only on the local level, so for example if one author wants to steal music from 3rd party royalty free / production music library - such system will not be able to protect from piracy!
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And what is more important - this method will not guarantee 100% protection, because not an every algorithm is able to identify the master recordings, among all the productions of an artist or group.
So, theoretical yes, this system could be applied, despite the fact that it is only going to protect the new content, and Iām not sure that such the update will be applied to all AJ items. And yes, this is not guaranteed 100% protection, as I said above.
I can tell you one more thing:
I had already seen a lot of those threads here, about piracy and other stuff. But Envato does not make any dramatic changes. Think about it.
P.S. I still do not understand how piracy protection would raise the quality of music. @StudioKolomna could you explain, please?
All this big talk makes any sense only if those people who sell stolen tracks are actually making some big money which i doubt. If they sell ocassional track or make even couple of hundreds a monthā¦well thatās nothing really,it doesnāt even change any balance because they make 0.00ā¦% of total amount of sold music. Such behavior only tells that there are people who are not ashamed of stealing but we all know that,thatās not a news.
So in short, stolen music is important only if it comes to weekly bestsellers or becomes featured,but I doubt it will ever happen and if it does it will be noticed very fast.
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