Rightscorp is rearing its head again, sending takedown notices to BitTorrent users. According to an article in TorrentFreak (sort of like the Wall Street Journal for Torrents?), Rightscorp has also begun suing Comcast subscribers who are believed to be illegally downloading music through the service.
That's the extreme side of infringement. On the other side of the spectrum is the "dancing baby" takedown case from years ago. At other times, you sort of wish copyright infringement was the answer – for the sake of the actresses involved – but it can't be everything to everyone (i.e., Desert Warrier – Anti-Islam Takedown Mess).
Many people simply don't realize that copyright infringement can carry a penalty of $150,000 in statutory damages if the work is registered with the U.S. copyright office. At the same time, video monetization on YouTube and Facebook is the current advertising rocketship, as ordinary videos can now be monetized (and consequently generate actual damages for copyright infringement).
Unfortunately, licensing of content for commercialized videos remains difficult and expensive. Earlier I did a post on sources of photos that are public domain. What about music for your videos? If you are just making a single video for your YouTube advertisement, it can be prohibitively expensive to score and record a soundtrack. Current copyright licensing options also drive me crazy because it is so difficult to license music for one-off projects and the cost of negotiating a license is often more trouble than the music is worth.
One place I've found that helps with this type of music licensing is Rumblefish, which is a music licensing platform that allows you to select and license independent music for lots of different projects (See www.friendlymusic.com). If you are a small business, you can license background music for very reasonable license fees. The site also allows you to sort music by the type of projects/emotion you are interested in portraying. You can quickly and inexpensively license one of thousands of independent songs for your video without the hassle of most record labels. For companies under 10 employees, the license fee is $25. For companies between 10 and 20 employees, the license fee is $125.
Keep in mind that Rumblefish does not offer vocal coaching to its submitting artists. There are some gems though. They aren't set up to let me share music or I'd have linked some samples here!
I have no connection to Rumblefish, but I think offers a much needed service.
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