The AJ Community Guide #5: Moving from AdRev to Identifyy (Haawk)

Envato Authors AudioJungle
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This guide is based on an AudioJungle community forum discussions about complex issues like PRO royalties and CID. Feel free to improve this guide by making comments and sharing your experience.

I’ve written the following chapters already:

First of all, I would recommend everyone registering with CID protection service like Identifyy. Thanks to this you can get extra money, find videos with your music (especially those which use your music without license) and protect your tracks against “CID pirates” who register unregistered tracks as their works in CID (!). Go to chapter #3 to read more about registering with CID, this chapter is about moving from AdRev to Identifyy (Haawk).

For many years AdRev has been the most popular CID service among AJ authors. Unfortunatelly in the last few years AdRev:

  • almost stopped finding new videos for many AJ authors, even though they are approving new tracks (which means for us no copyright protection! And of course lower earnings)
  • does not clearly inform authors which tracks were rejected after submission (e.g. from genres like percussive or ambient). It’s important since they have very restrictive rules regarding audio-fingerprinting-risky genres and reject more tracks comparing to Identifyy
  • probably did not collect a “publishing” part of the YT royalties for (some? most? all?) royalty free composers
  • stopped registering new AJ authors (or at least most of them)

If you’re using AdRev, you can compare your current monthly number of video findings with similar period in the past. If you see a drop, it is very likely that you can earn much more with other CID service and (what is more important) better protect your music against unauthorised use.

Identifyy (Haawk) became the best well known CID service for us. Some authors moved their portfolios to their service and after few months it seems to be way more efficient. In my case it is uncomparably higher number of found videos and +1000% higher earnings(!). They have a great support and treat AJ authors seriously.

Whole transfer of portfolio is easy, immediate and painless. You will not loose money and your clients will not have double claims. You can even negotiate their share percent.

The only issue you can encounter is a higher rate of single clients who ask you for whitelisting their video (you can save time by adding this PDF to your zip). It happens because Identifyy finds way more videos than AdRev. But don’t worry, it is still a very small number comparing to number of tracks which you have sold.

Is it worthy?
Let me quote @AurusAudio:

Moving tracks from AdRev to Identifyy is very easy:

  1. Ask AdRev via this form to stop protecting your tracks. Some say that you can simply skip this point and it will be ok as well.
  2. Upload tracks to Identifyy (Haawk)
  3. Change “CID name” field in your item pages to “Identifyy (Haawk)” instead of “AdRev”. Use this awesome tool to make a super quick batch edit of whole portfolio.

Quick tips:

  • do not upload Logos shorter than exact 30 seconds because Youtube CID tracking engine doesn’t use tracks shorter than 30sec, even though CID services can approve them
  • upload all variations
  • upload demos from kits
  • upload music without watermarks
  • try to avoid uploading music inelligible for Youtube CID. Elligibility criteria change from time to time but usually the most important thing is to avoid uploading public domain tracks. You can find full description here
  • you probably wonder what is going on with the double name Identifyy-Haawk. Haawk is a company providing wider copyright protection services. Identifyy is a part of this company as a self-administration tool for the CID protection. But keep in mind that “Haawk” is the name which appears in the CID claims.

And there is on thing you should be aware of. Identifyy (Haawk) asks you for a three years contract which is hard to terminate. Usually it shouldn’t bother you unless you try to move your tracks to other library which doesn’t allow CID registration. By the way, we do not recommend moving to such libraries.

I’ve made a big update to chapter #3 where I exchanged all AdRev instructions with way more efficient Identifyy (Haawk).

Feel free to share your experience!

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Excellent! Wish I had it last year :slight_smile: Thanks for doing this

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What sort of money can you make from using these protection services. I have never used Adrev

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Hard to say. @WavebeatsMusic had something like 1000$ for the first month (not even full month) but he has CID-friendly portfolio. I have smaller rate because my clients use a lot of <30 sec versions.

In your case three digits are possible I guess, hard to say. But think of the licenses that have to be bought because of the claims and overall herd immunity of our industry.

CID is a must imho.

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I guess it’s money on the table that I could have in my pocket! And of course license fees that may be due :slight_smile:

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My first month was $5500 according to a preliminary report. Amazing right? But it did drop fast. The following month’s report said around $1500, and I expect it to level out around $800-1000 soon. But that’s still much better than what I was ever making from AdRev.

At this stage I can comfortably recommend Identifyy. The detection system is more thorough, the site is sleeker and more streamlined, and the staff are super friendly.

@FlossieWood definitely hop on board with CID! It’s our right as authors to protect theft and unlicensed usage of our music! And it’s another great source of revenue.

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Wow that’s incredible! I think I will - I’m sold!

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Wow, I remember when you asked me in pm is it worthy and I tried to convince you to move from AdRev. That’s a move! :slight_smile:

Can I quote you at the end of the main text of this guide chapter?

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Sure thing!

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April report from Identifyy is out. But i see some videos disappear from the list, and they should be in, anyone else has experienced something like this?

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Maybe claims were cleared or Youtube user exchanged the music?

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No, the claim is still alive, and the video still got the track. That is why i am asking, because it is a little bit strange. I asked to Identifyy but the only answer i had is wait to May, June report.
I will wait to see what happen, but i wanted to ask if its only me or someone else have the same problem.

PS; this video in particular had around 4.500.000 views in april to June period.

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I have no idea. Maybe they exchanged music only in April and put it back later? Is it possible?

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Sometimes i check videos (the most viewed) from previous report to see how are going for the next report, and with this one nothing changed.
I hope this is just a bug, and will be fixed. But i will watching it, because it is very strange.

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Yep, great that you monitor it. Generally CID system is very buggy and in many cases it is not a cid service fault, often Youtube system is the one to blame.

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I had another video with around 3.000.000, but that account was deleted in July, so i lost all that monetization.
This one neither appear in april report. :cry: :sweat_smile:

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My situation is a bit different but still… There are a few vids with my music with a couple million views. So I was making around 1000-1300$ monthly while I was using AdRev. I transferred my whole portfolio to Identifyy in the middle of April. Now when the April report is out, I can’t see any of those videos in the list. So I only got 250$. The thing is: if you look on the YouTube description, you can see that those videos are already licensed by Identifyy (HAAWK). I guess I have to wait for the next report to see what is really happening.

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Yes! Exactly as me. I see that i am not the only one. Let´s wait till the total report.

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That’s important. Did you ask Haawk why this happen? Maybe it will be compensated in the future reports, I don’t know.

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I haven’t asked them yet but I’m pretty sure you’re right about later compensation.