Music Licenses Month´s freebies

Hi there, i use a monthßs freebie audiofile for one of my short youtube clips. After 6 months with no problems at all i get this mail from youtube:

A copyright owner using Content ID claimed some material in your video.
This is just a heads up
Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble and your account standing is not affected by this.

There are either ads running on your video, with the revenue going to
the copyright owner, or the copyright owner is receiving stats about
your video’s views.

What’s next?

If there are no problems, you don’t need to take any action. You don’t need to delete your video.
If something went wrong and the copyright owner or our system made a
mistake, we have a dispute process. Only use it if you’re confident you
have the rights to use all the content in your video.

And now? I can play the video but only with advertising. The money of this gops to the author…

->Is that everytime the case with this free files on envato? What can i do?

Of course you have the right to “dispute” this claim, since the free download is basically the same as buying a “Music Standard License” - so you do have a valid license for the track. The only problem being that you won’t find a license certificate for this track in your ‘downloads’ section as you would normally do for a track you bought.

Yet I think there are ways to show that you have a valid license:

  1. When you downloaded the free file, there was a PDF included in the (zipped) download containing the license certificate details for the track. If you still have this PDF, you could use this to verify that you have a valid license (even though it was free…).

  2. If you don’t have this PDF anymore, you could try to contact the author of the track via his/her profile page. Send along the details regarding your video (like the video URL…) and see if the author can release the claim on your video.

I’d be very much interested to hear if you could solve the issue, since I had a free audio file this month and of course wouldn’t want people who downloaded the track to run into problems.

Contact the author. Without a certificate, he is the one who can lift the claim.

Disputing a claim with Youtube is never the best way to lift it. Especially in this case where there is no license certificate. With nothing to back your dispute, Youtube may think you’re being “dishonest” and this may hurt your channel. You normally want to contact the third party (usually AdRev or Audiam) who will lift the claim swiftly when presented with a license certificate. In this case though, going to the author directly is the way to go.

Authors need to think twice before offering an AdRev registered track for the Free File of the Month. Offering a track to anyone who wishes to use it and yet trying to monetize illegal use, just does not compute.

It creates complications, and a lot of additional work for the author, since they would be responsible to clear the claims to those who downloaded the free file… all of them.

More importantly, distributing a file freely (even though temporary) is considered by Youtube to be incompatible with ContentID. Creative Commons music was taken out of the system for that reason. If many Free File users dispute the claim with Youtube, saying the file was distributed for free, you run the risk of having your track removed from ContentID, or worse your whole portfolio, or worse the whole microstock industry.

That’s maybe a bit much - but I get your point. :slight_smile:

By the way: Like I said before, there actually is a license certificate included in the ZIP file. And this license basically is the same as a “Music Standard License”.

Yet you’re right - it’s (always) better to contact AdRev / Audiam etc. directly than disputing via YouTube. And the easiest and best way in this case probably is to directly contact the author.

As for the general question if tracks that are ContentID registered should be offered as a Free File of the Month on AJ at all: I think it would be nice to get some feedback from envato staff on this…? @KingDog

I’m not a license expert, it’s always best to open a Help Ticket for tricky license questions, but I know the Free File of the month comes with an implied standard use license. Of course, there’s nothing to show to YouTube if they ask…so I would imagine it may be best not to use Free Files of the Month on YouTube until they get things figured out a bit better. Ultimately it’s your choice.