Why I Joined AdRev, And Why You Should Too.

Envato Authors AudioJungle
1

Hello everyone :blush:

Iā€™ve been on the fence about AdRev for quite some time now.

There have been a lot of pros and cons presented through multiple posts on AJ with varying author experiences. For me personally, as a lot of my music has ended up in YouTube projects going back at least 5 years now, the jump of registering would affect thousands of people.

Something happened that has pushed me over to a final decision however, and I have now registered my entire AudioJungle portfolio with AdRev. If there was an experiment to be had with AdRev, this is certainly it.

The reason I am here telling you about it is because I want to warn you. The main reason I have decided to register my entire portfolio is because ā€¦ are you ready ā€¦ a business/label started registering my songs under their own name!

A few weeks ago I started receiving e-mails from different past buyers who were asking what Content ID was and why their videos were getting flagged on YouTube. I had no idea what was going on. To my horror, I realized that my music was being claimed by someone else. To make things worse, I couldnā€™t white list videos or channels because the videos werenā€™t registered in my name!

Iā€™ve come across a lot of annoying things working in the music industry over the years, but this one shot my blood pressure through the roof. Just imagine how angry that would make you, I know you can relate for sure.

Not only did I not have the tools to remove the claims for buyers, I didnā€™t even know what songs had been registered. Blindsided, I didnā€™t have anything on my website to inform buyers about the process and worst of all someone else was making money off of my music and I wasnā€™t sure for how long.

I got in contact with AdRev (and our lawyers) immediately and got things sorted out (which I wonā€™t get into now).

I scrambled to build a Content ID knowledge base on my website, added a special form to help buyers clear claims and claimed (or claimed back) my music.

SO - word to the wise: Yes it may be a small inconvenience for both us and buyers to get used to the Content ID system, and yes there may be a few bumps,ā€¦ but what is worse, is someone else registering your music, making money from it, and screwing up your customer base for you as youā€™re left clueless about what is happening!

So in my world, registering with AdRev went from a maybe distant possibility, to: ā€œthis is happening today.ā€

Just wanted to throw out the warning friends - claim your music before someone else does!

32 Likes
2

Oh my!!!
Recently I discovered some site that was selling a video hive AE template from Exclusive author here, for 200+$. Donā€™t know who is the scam but I agree with you, there are many scams out there. Gotta be careful!
Thanks for informing this!!!

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Wow Tim, that story made my blood boil. I find it extraordinary that some company would have no issue claiming your music as their own. I hope your lawyers take every opportunity to subject them to prolonged legal pain and suffering. I can imagine how frustrating it would have been to discover this and have no immediate way of whitelisting your legit customers. Glad that headache is over for you.

You certainly helped convince me about AdRev - my sales are minuscule in comparison to yours (as are most authors on AJ) but the idea of having my music claimed by someone else is intolerable.

Thanks for sharing this story with us. Iā€™m sure you will find a lot of us following your advice on this one. All the best to you.

4

This is precisely what Iā€™m trying to warn my clients about: if the music you are using is not yet registered with AdRev it can get there any minute, and the best I can do is to ensure I can take care of Content ID on my own. It is only by buying AdRev registered music from respective producers and clearing it straight away that YouTubers can be sure they wonā€™t suddenly get a surprise copyright claim on their video one day.

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Thatā€™s messed up. Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge.

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Thatā€™s crazy! Iā€™ve always seen the threat of someone else claiming your songs as their own as one of the ā€œweakerā€ and less probable arguments for registering with a Content ID system. Canā€™t believe it happened to you!

Glad you got it sorted out! Thanks for sharing!

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Thanks for sharing your experience, definitely gives me something to think about in regards to AdRev.

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Iā€™ve joined AdRev for the exact same reason, I didnā€™t want anyone claiming my music before I did it myself.

Of course I am not as big/good as Tim is but still :slight_smile:

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Wowā€¦ This puts everything into a new perspective. Thanks for sharing your story Tim. Scary stuff.

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Wowā€¦indeed scary,thanks for the tip Tim

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Yeah, heard already such a story somewhere. I have all my items registered with AdRev except one, which was a free file of the month. Now I have to rethink if it would indeed be better to register it with ContentID before somebody else starts claiming it.

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Well done Tim, glad to see youā€™re finally climbing aboard. As a long-time, ardent AdRev evangelist myself, youā€™ve directly addressed a reason to join AdRev that Iā€™ve been hinting at for quite some time here.

Youā€™ve made a wise decision and can only be for the best in our business. I just hope you donā€™t receive any personal angry emails from other authors here that donā€™t agree with AdReving AudioJungle music. I know I did! :wink:

3 Likes
13

A very valuable post that every AJ author should read. Youā€™ve certainly convinced me of the necessity of AdRev. To see other companies claiming your music as their own is awful. Looks like Iā€™ll be registering my portfolio with AdRev sooner than I thought. Thanks, Tim for sharing your experiences with us!

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I for one whole heartedly support AdRev and registering my entire portfolio. It just goes to show how important it is to do so. For me the money is not as important as protecting my work and that licenses should be legitimately purchased. Sorry to hear about that ridiculous and outrageous goings on Tim. :slight_smile:

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Thanks Tim!

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Everything is good, but there is one thing that bothers me. All tracks that I registered on AdRev now fully accessible on YouTube. And any bad guy can rip them with Adobe Audition or Total Recorder or other same soft. :unamused:

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@Grivanov

Our music is catalogued and made available via the built-in ā€˜AudioSwapā€™ feature within the YouTube Video Editor and we get revenue from those uses too. I imagine it would be a major hassle to go through all those and real-time record them.

People can easily take our music directly from YouTube videos just by using a simple online video to mp3 ripper. This is how most people are doing it and where a lot of the revenue is generated for us. I wouldnā€™t bother worrying about it as thereā€™s simply no way to stop it. Digital fingerprinting is the right thing to do here.

3 Likes
18

I thinkā€¦ Is it a good way to register tracks with other name or maybe code ? Because now If I find good track on AJ and I am a bad guy and I see that track registered on AdRev I can easily find it there and Rip.

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If iā€™m uploaded video with watermarked audio, then no sense to download it to bad guy.

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Yes, but the audio can also be lifted from videos which legitimately licensed the track.