YouTube "Video Distributor" Lies Exposed!

Hi and Happy New Year 2015!!

This is a great read for anyone who has music that they wrote and performed, (and paid for) a music video, and then posted it on YouTube. I have personally encountered this issue with my song, Psalm on Danny Boy, where some online Distributor has taken all my rights and money for over 300K views!  When I contested it with YouTube and sent them a copy of my copyright, they told me that the case was closed.  Huh??  Well that's just sick, I wrote it, I sang it, and I paid some guy a bunch of dough to produce it as a work for hire, and now I'm getting zippo.  I hope the below info is informative whether you're an artist, musician, or you just care about what's happening in music and to us artists!

Best, DeDe W. :)

www.DeDe-Music.com
www.Youtube.com/1dwedekind

This Is How Distribution Companies Are Stealing Artists’ YouTube Revenue…

Tuesday, August 13, 2013 
by

Jeff Price

The following guest post comes from Jeff Price, the original founder of TuneCore and now founder/CEO of Audiam.com.  Audiam’s objective is to get artists paid much more for the use of their music on YouTube.   

“Each time there is a new way for an artist to make money, a new way emerges for others to take it from them.”

The most recent example: with no justification, a significant percentage of an artist’s YouTube money is being taken by many of the music distribution companies – (music distribution companies are the companies that place an artist’s music into iTunes, AmazonMP3, Spotify etc.)

The distribution companies get away with this by claiming that they, not the artist, control the rights to the artists’ recordings for licensing into videos on YouTube.  This allows them to take a percentage of the artist’s YouTube money for doing nothing. They pull off this financial sleight of hand due to the incredibly tangled, confusing, backwards and, in some cases, almost impossible to understandcopyright laws and music business practices.

Case in point.  Distributors have never, ever controlled an artist’s right to license recordings into videos.  This makes sense; the distributors’ role is to distribute recordings of music onto the shelves of music stores and then administer back the money from the sale of the music.

Distributors do NOT license music into videos.

As we are all aware, YouTube is not a “store”; music is not placed on a “shelf” and consumers do not pay money to buy music from it.

These rather glaring facts are not stopping some distributors from sticking themselves between the artist and YouTube, taking a percentage of the artist’s YouTube money for doing absolutely nothing and adding it to their bottom line.

If this does not yet make sense to you, it’s for a good reason.  It’s confusing – and this confusion makes the unsuspecting artist vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

Let me explain in more detail.

How YouTube Works

There are two main ways to make money on YouTube.

One is from views of your own videos on your own YouTube account – this is called a “Channel.”

The second is from views of videos which use your music in them – this is called a “Claim.”

CHANNELS – How A Musician Can Make Money On Their Own Videos On YouTube.

Let’s say you wrote a song, recorded that song and made your own video with that song in it – like an official music video. This video would have three copyrights in it, all controlled by you:

1) One copyright for the video itself

2) One copyright for the recording of the song (called “The Master)

3) One copyright for the lyrics and melody to the song (called “The Composition”)

Next, you create an account at YouTube, called a “Channel” and upload your own video with your own music in it.  You then tell YouTube to “monetize” your video with ads (this option appears in your YouTube account for everyone. No middleman needed). When the ads generate money, YouTube pays you about 55% of what the advertiser paid them.

NOTE: This option to make money on your YouTube video is open to everyone; no middleman is needed.

CLAIMS – What Some Music Distribution Companies Are Doing On YouTube To Take A Piece Of The Artist’s Money

Let’s assume that as before, you wrote a song, recorded that song and made your own video with that song in it – like an official music video – and uploaded it to your own YouTube account (called a Channel).

Also as before, the video has three copyrights and as before all three copyrights are controlled by you:

1) One copyright for the video itself

2) One copyright for the recording of the song (called “The Master)

3) One copyright for the lyrics and melody to the song (called “The Composition”)

This time however, there is a twist; the artist used a distributor to put the music in his/her YouTube video on the shelf of iTunes, AmazonMP3 etc.  Unbeknownst to the artist, this distributor also has a special contract with YouTube called a “Direct Licensing” contract.

These “Direct Licensing” contracts are typically only given to larger music companies or distributors, not to individual artists or songwriters.  These contracts allow the distributors to tell YouTube that they, not the artist, control the rights to the music of a song being used in videos on YouTube.

In addition the “Direct Licensing” contract also allows the distributor to go into YouTube, find the artist’s own videos in the artist’s own YouTube account, have YouTube place ads on the artist’s videos and then (here’s the important part) have the YouTube ad money flow from YouTube directly to the distributor, not to the artist.

(NOTE – these same “direct licensing contracts can be used for good by finding other people’s videos using the artist’s music and making the artist money off of those, something an artist cannot do on his/her own).

Now that the distributors have the artist’s money, they take a cut of it before paying the artist whatever is leftover.  They very misleadingly call the percentage of money they take from the artist’s YouTube revenue a “distribution fee”.

Let’s be clear.  It is NOT a distribution fee, the distributor did not “distribute” anything to YouTube. It’s a “we’re taking a piece of your revenue because we can” fee.

What justification does the distributor have to get a cut of the artist’s money? Good question, and sadly there is not a good answer.

The distributor did not write the song, record the song or create the video.  They did not create the artist’s YouTube account or even upload the artist’s video to YouTube.

And they certainly did not cause people to watch the video which generates the ad money.

Finally, unlike other digital services like iTunes and Amazon, no middleman is needed; artists can go direct with YouTube and make ad money on their own videos themselves by simply uploading their video and clicking the “monetize” button.

In other words, the artist writes a song, records the song, mixes the song, masters the song, shoots a video, edits it together, uploads it to YouTube and gets people to watch it based on the merits of the music and video. The distributor, which did NOTHING to cause these views, create the music and is not needed as a middleman to make money on YouTube, sits back and just takes a chunk of the artists’ money.

Due to the complexities of copyright law and/or the artist not knowing they can just go direct with YouTube a chunk of the artist’s money is being taken by someone else.

In other words, these distributors do it because they can get away with it.

They don’t need to do this, they consciously choose to.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

In this day and age, I can’t believe we still have to fight for an honest system.  It really is not hard to give the artists all the money they are entitled to in a clear, timely and transparent fashion; you just have to want to do it.

But let’s say they don’t want to do it, and they’re solely in the game to make a lot of money at any expense. These sleight of hand business models work against them. Each time a stunt like this is pulled, eventually someone else will step forward with a way to correct things and completely cut them out (just look at what happened to the old school music industry).

As one example, in, 2005, I watched the artist needlessly have to give up their copyrights and a percentage of their money from the sale of their music in order to get it onto iTunes, so I started TuneCore (sadly, the investors in TuneCore threw out the three original founders and appear to no longer have the artist’s best interest in mind).

Now, in 2013, I’m watching the distributors have the artist needlessly give up a percentage of their YouTube money from views of their own videos on YouTube.   So I started Audiam (via Audiam, the artist gets 100% of the revenue from the views on their own YouTube videos and also makes money on other people’s YouTube videos).

Can’t the new music industry take a moment and look at the past and learn from it?  

If you screw the artist, eventually you are going to get cut out. Yes it’s easier to just take money by hiding behind the complexities, but if you truly want to create a great long lasting business of value, it’s going to take innovation and hard work.  You actually have to create something that makes money predicated on real value, not on smokescreens and sleight of hand.

Change the model from exploiting the artist to serving the artist and we all win, both financially and morally (and maybe you can even sleep better at night).

In the meantime, can you just cut it out?  Stop taking the artist’s money needlessly, its hard enough for them as it is.

- Jeff Price

Twitter Handle: @TuneCoreJeff

Blog: artistcore.blogspot.com

How to Make a Cool (Cheap or FREE Music) Video!

Hi there Friends, Musicians, and Assorted Countrymen (and women!),

Well, now that I sort of have your attention once again, here's some loving advice from a good friend regarding making music videos, or any videos really.  This falls into that new category that I call: TRUE THAT.  You NEED to be on YouTube if you are a musician or songwriter. Period. Yes, ahem I'll say it again: "True That".  If you are not on YouTube you will fall by the wayside if you're trying to promote yourself, your music or a song, etc. Long gone are the days when you could avoid Social Media like the plague and still make it or try to make it (well, you can still TRY...)

You can even do fun lifestyle-type videos for your fans (or even your family & friends), or one to promote a new business or something, but whatever you do, be sure that you make them look and sound as professional as possible. And, there's no need to spend megabucks on them right now. That is, unless you are a super-mega watt superstar raking in the cash-ola, and in that case you should be making them really really professionally (read: totally expensive!), or you may just look cheap.

DeDe :)  www.youtube.com/1dwedekind       www.DeDe-Music.com
Personal Disclaimer: If you look at my vids, some of them are professional like "One Child" and "The Fairy Tale Song", and some are more, shall we say, amateur. But I TRIED to only post ones that I thought had interesting content, and good sound/video, but this isn't always the case! :)

Written by: Gregory Douglass

So many bands and musicians have had success through viral music video outlets like Youtube. The demand for video is only increasing so it’s time for you to get in on the action. Youtube is still the second largest search engine in the world, and in case you forgot, that’s how Justin Bieber was discovered (how could you forget?) You could easily spend thousands of dollars on a sharp looking, professionally-produced music video – but if you’re just getting started, you probably can’t afford that. That’s no excuse for bypassing music videos altogether though. As a musician, you can’t afford not to have them these days, so here are six steps on how to make a music video on your own for free for those of you who are brand new to the world video:

1. Choose your strongest song. Assuming that you’re a recording artist, you probably have a least a handful of brilliant songs already recorded that you can choose from. Be sure to pick your strongest song, but don’t just take your own word for it – get some second opinions! Chances are, your favorite song isn’t necessarily your strongest song – at least not according to everyone else. Ask your fans, friends, and family what they think is your strongest – then do yourself a favor and take their word for it. This should set the stage for more consistent results from the music video you’re about to make. Understand that your music video will be an incredibly powerful promotional vehicle for whatever song you choose, so make it a strong one!

2. Choose your video equipment. Assuming that you already have a laptop, computer, smartphone, tablet, or camera with video capabilities – you’ll have plenty of equipment options to choose from. If you don’t have access to any of these devices, you probably have a friend who would be kind enough to let you borrow something. All of these devices come with some sort of internal camera and video recording capability, so choose whatever works for you. Since you’re making a music video, the audio component of whatever device you choose won’t matter because you’re eventually going to replace the audio with the pre-recorded audio of your strongest song. I use a Canon Vixia consumer camcorder myself – which is HD quality for a reasonable price – but you can use your shiny new iPhone 5, MacBook Pro, or something as affordable and easy to use as a Flip MinoHD Camera.

3. Create your concept. What kind of imagery comes to mind from the song you’ve selected? What kind of music video do you want to create? For example, you can choose to create a more traditional, story-driven music video, or a live performance-style music video. With a story-driven music video, you might consider doing some acting or filming various places, people, things, or circumstances that support your storyline or imagery. Get creative here and make the most out of what you have to work with already. Is there anything just lying around the house that you can incorporate? Include footage of you lip-syncing a performance, lip-syncing a studio recording session, or capture footage your band performing the song. This will also work exclusively for a live performance-style music video, and you’ll be better off lip-syncing to your pre-recorded song verses singing it live for sake of better audio quality.

4. Choose your locations. Keep it simple and stick to 1-3 locations for your music video. They can be anywhere that supports your storyline or imagery – even three different rooms in the same house works. Is your song dark and brooding? Consider darker locations with softer lighting. Is your song happy and inspiring? Consider brighter locations with wide, open spaces. Shooting outside during the day always offers ample lighting, and cloudy days are particularly helpful in regulating the light because clouds act as natural light diffusers – so long as it’s not raining on your video equipment! If you want more indoor lighting regulation, be sure to have some good lighting options on hand – such as strong overhead lights with dimmers or spotlight lamps – and experiment with each lighting source.

5. Shoot your video. Experiment with various camera angles and positions before you start recording full takes. You might discover you have a more visually striking side or angle, and you might discover the same about your location. Once you’re ready to press record, plan to perform or lip-sync to your song 2-4 times, and aim for 2-4 takes for everything you decide to film as a general rule of thumb. This will give you more than one option for every point in the song, just in case you had something between your teeth during the first take. Nothing is more discouraging than putting the time and effort into filming just to realize you have to do it all over again, so always create options! This rule of thumb is particularly helpful when you’re filming yourself because no one will be behind the camera to keep an eye on things while the camera is rolling. Consider various different angles for each take so your options are diverse when it comes time to edit. Different angles might include a wide shot, a waist shot, a close-up shot, and a handheld shot.

6. Edit your video. Editing your own music video can be as much fun as creating a concept and shooting your music video, so don’t be afraid to learn. It’s exciting to bring your footage to life, and it requires more of your own creativity. There are some powerful video editing software options available for premium prices – such as Final Cut and Adobe Premiere – but since we’re talking about making a music video for free, lets take a loot at the freemium alternatives. If you have a computer, you should already have access to free video editing software that is easy to use and simple to figure out on your own. If you’re on a mac for example, you should already have iMovie, and Windows Movie Maker for PC.Youtube even has its own built-in video editing application, though I can’t say I’ve tried it yet. Whatever software you use should have the option to eventually mute or disable the audio from your video footage once you import/upload it into a new project. You might want to keep it enabled until you’re finished editing though, as it will be a necessary point of reference for the song as you extract each clip you want to use to lay over the recording of your song. Once a clip is added to your video timeline and matched up correctly to the appropriate section of your recorded song, you can then disable the video clip’s audio channel. Get creative and play around with all the different takes and angles you’ve captured until you have built a completed music video that you’re happy with, free of charge!