YouTube have created a database of fingerprinted music;
i.e. music that YouTube's system "recognizes" by analyzing
the audio in an uploaded video and automatically matching that audio
against their database of registered, copyrighted tracks. If a match
is found, YouTube sends a copyright info message to the video creator/uploader
("Your video may include content that is owned
or administered by these parties:"), and in most
cases, places advertising on that video. Some of the money generated
by this advertising is paid out to the music copyright holder (i.e.
the publishing company that owns the music).
Our music is generally not fingerprinted
by YouTube
Unlike most royalty-free music / stock music sites,
Shockwave-Sound.com do not practice "music fingerprinting".
We do not submit our music to any Content ID fingerprinting database,
we do not receive any advertising income from YouTube, and our music
should not cause "copyright info" messages by YouTube.
This is one of the main reasons many people prefer Shockwave-Sound.com
over any other stock music library, when it comes to licensing music
for YouTube videos.
Still received "copyright info" message
on music licensed from us?
Even though we do not practice Content ID / music
fingerprinting, we cannot always control 100% what happens to all
the music that we have on our site. Only about half of the music
that we have on our site is actually owned and completely
controlled by us. The other half of our music is simply being distributed
through our site. These tracks are owned by the individual composers
who sent the music to us. We sell their tracks and pay them half
of the profits. These composers often have the same music sold via
other royalty-free music sites as well, and some of those
sites may submit the music into a Content ID / fingerprinting database.
We constantly remind our composers that we do not
wish to sell tracks that are in any YouTube content ID / fingerprinting
database, but even so, there may be stragglers. On some occasions
we've asked a composer to have his music removed from Content ID
/ fingerprinting, and on a couple of occasions we've had to stop
selling a composer's music because his music would repeatedly cause
"copyright info" messages from YouTube. Not because the
music was fingerprinted by us, but because the composer is selling
the same track through another service, and they fingerprinted
this composer's tracks.
If you should encounter the "copyright info"
with a track purchased from our site, it's important to remember
that you're not in any kind of trouble. The music
that you have licensed through our site is 100% legally licensed
to you, and your video will not be removed or blocked in any way.
You don't have to do anything. You are not being suspected of copyright
infringement or anything like that. YouTube are simply informing
you that they've found a match for that music track in their systems.
If you encounter this with music licensed through our site, we would
appreciate it if you could let
us know, so that we can discuss it with the composer. Please
send us the URL of your video, the track title and composer of the
music track used in the video, and the name of the company that
is claiming "ownership or administration" of that music.
Thanks.
Classical music copyright notices
With classical music recordings, the situation is
somewhat messy. The thing with classical music is that the actual
composition is in the public domain (it belongs to no one and everyone),
but who ever actually makes their own recording and arrangement
of a piece of classical music automatically owns the copyright to
that recording. We have the rights to our version of Chopin's
Nocturne. But another company may have made their own version
of the same composition, and they may have put that recording into
the YouTube audio recognition system. And that fully automated system
often cannot tell the difference between one version/recording and
another!
If you received a "copyright info" message when using
classical music that you licensed from us, most likely some company,
somewhere, has made their version of the same composition, and they
own the rights to that recording. They don't own the rights
to the version that we sell, but YouTube's automated systems cannot
tell the two versions apart from each other, and the track that
you licensed from us is wrongly being matched to a recording of
the same classical composition made by somebody else.
It's a real mess up there at YouTube with classical music, and
in some cases, several big music publishing companies are claiming
the rights to the same piece of music, even though that recording
doesn't even belong to any of them. This
thread over at Google Groups illustrates some of the problems
people are having with companies claiming rights to public domain
and classical compositions that they don't own the rights to.
There's not really much we can do about this, other than to recommend
you use the "Dispute" feature and, if necessary, provide
the license documentation that you got from our site when you made
your purchase. You may explain during the dispute submission process
that this is a case of mistaken identity and that this version so-and-so
composition is a recording that is licensed to you via Shockwave-Sound.com
and it is not the same recording as (what ever company is claiming
the rights to it). With a bit of luck, this process will lead to
the claim being removed from your video.
If you are serious about not having advertising on
your video, don't use YouTube
It amazes us when somebody uses YouTube for professional
presentation videos, on which they absolutely do not want any advertising
to appear. Remember that YouTube is a free service for anybody and
if you read the small-print before you upload videos to YouTube,
you will notice that by uploading video to YouTube, you are basically
giving YouTube total ownership of your video, and they can do whatever
they want with it. So if you're a famous hotel chain who's made
a wonderful video about your hotels, you really should not use YouTube
to host that video, because YouTube can, and will, place an advert
for a competing hotel chain right on your video. If it's important
to you that no advertising appears on your video, don't use YouTube!
Host the video on your own web server instead.
