Stolen music, accounts flood and so on.. share your countermeasure ideas!

One thing I know they don’t do is pay the rightful copyright owner after the sale of a stolen track. One of the publishers I provide with music had a serious case of infringement against a former author here who had stolen multiple pieces of music from his company and composers who worked with him. After going through the proper procedures to have the music removed, he requested payment on the licenses because the purchasers now had the music and were using it. Envato declined, and technically, they did not have the legal liability to pay my publisher’s company because the author agreed to accept all responsibility for any copyright infringement, thereby making Envato not legally responsible. So now, my publisher has to find the person or people, if the identities are even real ones.

And so that you’re all aware, that author (who claimed to be a team of people) was a participant in these forums and pretended to be everyone’s buddy by offering congratulations to people on the rooftop, making comments and even voluntarily posted a self-introduction when he/she/they arrived. I read that they even received a “super copyright ninja badge” for reporting other authors for theft. In short, we have to keep in mind that we are on the internet and the level of trust we have here with authors and other forum participants should be limited. I’ve seen authors asking other authors for their MIDI files so they can “remix” a song or assist with production. Not a good idea in my opinion.

Otherwise, ID verification is important, as is formally registering your copyright so that in the event your music is stolen, you can prove that your identity is the one that legally owns the copyright. Otherwise, it’s just your word against another person’s word. You may assume a thief would present a fake ID, but that’s not necessarily the case. It can be a stolen one or their real identity and any ID they present could be authentic, even if it’s a stolen ID. Content ID enrollment will also help you find out if someone else is claiming a copyright on your music. To start, someone may have beaten you to the enrollment using your music and claimed it was theirs. That happened to me and I eventually had that issue resolved. After enrollment, any possible infringement reports could result in a user presenting evidence of a license issued by someone else and you can track that back to the library where the thief is offering your music.

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Fully support topicstarter!

I guess this is one and only way to protect ourselves here…I can’t wait for Envato decision about this.

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Stop allowing new accounts for awhile to give the reviewers a chance to catch up; move to an annual or biannual “open to new accounts” submission window. Use the extra time to clear out old files or accounts that have no sales.

Etc.

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Yep, completely agree. ID verification is standard on pretty much every other outlet I use, unsure as to why Envato are still behind on that one…

I fully support!

For me this is an EASY solution, simply drop some frequencies or the right/left channels. When you purchase then you get the whole file. Brain surgery right?!

I even found an “Elite author” with at least 200-300 stolen music (and maybe more). Who believes this? Hard to believe but hey please listen me out: I shazamed some of his/her tracks and guess what? Stolen music…and this author is also uploading demo tracks of some major sample vendors!!!
I would appreciate someone helping me out by reporting this false user who sells stolen music.
For further information contact me privately.

And ENVATO please add ID verification for all old and new users and it would be super nice if all new tracks in audiojungle goes through a some kind of audio recognition like Shazam or YouTube Audio Content ID (also old tracks ones as well possibly).

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If this is true then you should open a support ticket as soon as possible and alert Envato to the problem (but don’t name author in question on the forums):

https://help.market.envato.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=37840

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This is a very, very serious accusation. Are you sure of what your stating? If so, you need to contact support asap.

Shazam is not reliable when it comes to RF music (or at least to corporate music). I tested it a few days ago on new tracks, and I got a lot of false positive. The app would give me different results on a same track.

You might wanna double check that on shazam to be 100% sure before reporting thing!!

Thanks, I did report the user via the support ticket last year but nothing.

@mannymusic Emanuele sure I did and there are so many anomalies like low audio resolution, continuous uploads like a machine, strange endings (their endings sound odd, this guy adds wet reverb at the end of almost all of those tracks to create a natural tail and adds some sound effects like risers/impacts to mask the whole thing…

Ok i think i know what u mean!

Well, so far i have found:

  • Tracks that are simply pitchshifted two notes down and are called a new track.
    “inspiration happy clappy fun” (not the real title, do not search) being the original, and “inspiration happy clappy joy” being pitchshifted and sold seperately.
  • Weird risers to mask something, and a overal low audio resolution like it has been recorded and pitched.
  • Tracks that are copy/pasted but with two notes altered and being sold seperately.
  • And one track that is exactly the same when you search for it through shazam and spotify.

If this is all legal, why do we even bother working on original material that might take days/weeks if we can do this as well within 3-4 minutes and profit even better?

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Thanks Robert
You didn’t mention the most important aspect which makes it relevant to this topic which is stolen music within those tracks…and we are talking about the exact same track which you can find on shazam spotify or where else!

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thanks, edited!

I guess Envato has or should have a special copyright team who should definitely work only on stolen music issues and ban accounts with stolen music. This is the best option that exists right now. Without this severe but justful punishment for stealing somebody’s music original composers will always suffer.
Totally agree about ID but I guess it is not anough. I think that the best choice for new accounts is 2 months trial period during which new composers must prove that they create original music and this music is of high quality. After this trial period they should be able to work as normal composers on AJ. (I don’t understand what kind of explanation can possibly exist for 1 month queue while new accounts get half a day) Anywhay I may be wrong but that’s my thoughts about it.

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Exactly. Envato profits from piracy (come on, we all know it exists). so it makes perfect sense for an entity to sue Envato if they cannot find the actual thieves who committed the piracy. This is actually quite a no-brainier, and I’m surprised Envato has not already required I.D. verification. By not requiring stricter verification measures, Envato is actually verging on willing accomplice. Too extreme? In my view, they have a duty to stop piracy at all costs, since they stand to profit from it (50-70%) if the piracy is left unchecked.

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I hate template-based tracks. I hate stolen music. That’s unprofessional. +1 for ID verification

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