I don't know about you guys, but the whole HitPiece saga earlier this week gave me an absolute headache. (more details here for anyone who missed it, but basically a website copied the whole of Spotify and listed the link to pretty much every track on Spotify as an NFT- that's right, not the track, just the link to it, with a complimentary copy of the artwork of said track thrown in for good measure... More details here. https://slate.com/technology/2022/02/hitpiece-nfts-crypto-music-controve...)
No matter what your feelings are on NFTs (personally I'm against them for environmental reasons), the sensation of your work being stolen for someone else to make money from them is pretty horrible. (The website claimed to pay artists, but if you never gave permission and never knew your music was being listed there, how would you know to ask them for payment?!)
Some people I know are saying this is the future now, and we have to figure out ways to protect ourselves from this kind of activity going forwards. So, what can we do? As composers we need to put our work out there but it's becoming increasingly difficult to do so safely. So, here are my initial thoughts on how we can protect our music from theft.
1) Be VERY careful where you post music and what your settings are. Only allow downloads on Soundcloud on private tracks if you want a music supervisor or someone to be able to download it. Personal website, Soundcloud, Spotify etc. are all safe places, but be aware they do come with visibility.
2) When you share on Soundcloud or social media, make sure you've got copyright etc in the track details.
3) If you're not worried about the environmental aspects, you can mint them yourself, then keep the tokens. That way no one can steal them.
Does anyone else have any thoughts about ways we can protect ourselves?
1 person likes this
Well what about the 'legal' ways of stealing others income. As I mentioned last year, every so often (perhaps once or twice a year ???) the major streamers such as Amazon and Netflix, pay a contracted amount to the PROs (ASCAP, BMI, Sesac). Then these services 'sample' what films are playing in order to determine how to distribute the money paid. Thing is, for ASCAP, for example, in the case o f Amazon films, they only sample and include in their calculations films with over 100,000 views. They also only distribute royalties for those services they have contracts with. So for example, nothing shown on the satellite channel, shorts.tv, is sampled or paid for as there is no contract. So what that means in my opinion, is that the composers who score for low volume independent films that are streamed, are not getting royalties - instead what they should get is going to the composers of higher volume films.
Joanna Karselis there's more. I'll put it as a separate post as well.
https://americansongwriter.com/spotify-stock-down-25-as-artists-leave-pl...
Oh that's really interesting Navid Lancaster . Thanks for sharing. Have you seen this story? Spotify are also investing in AI weaponry. I'm really going back on forth on whether to pull my stuff from them because of it, and that was before all this Joe Rogan and Hitpoint stuff started. https://www.nme.com/news/music/artists-criticise-spotify-ceo-daniel-eks-...
Joel Irwin you know I 100% agree with you on that one Joel, and we've talked about it at great length previously. You're entirely right that indie composers aren't being treated fairly by the royalty system and it's grossly unfair to us.
However, respectfully, I think you're missing my point here. These are two separate issues. Just because we're aware one kind of theft is already happening doesn't mean we should then ignore the fact that another is just beginning. Unlike with streaming, we're here poised at the start of a new technology. This is a unique opportunity to figure out how to protect ourselves for the short to medium term future. Let's not make two very different but equally important issues compete against each other. If you have any thoughts on how we can protect ourselves from NFT theft I would love to hear them.
Joanna Karselis I just read it. Wow. Just ..... wow. That is so NOT good. From paying the artists the BAREST of minimum to supporting AI for war.
2 people like this
Navid Lancaster RIGHT?! But no one's talking about it! I don't understand why it's not headline news alongside the Covid misinformation backlash. I even mentioned it in Perspective the other day and... pretty much radio silence. People seemingly don't care about weaponised AI being in potentially very bad hands. It's baffling.
I've been going back and forth for about six weeks about whether to pull my stuff off over it (which would have then dodged the HitPiece bullet...), but as a small artist I can't justify it, despite how morally repugnant I find Spotify. Particularly as doing so doesn't just affect me, but people who I've collaborated with or written on albums for... They've simultaneously rigged the system and shut it down. You can't leave and remain sustainable and visible as a minor artist, but equally I really don't want to stay. Feels like being stuck between a very spiky rock and the hardest of all hard places.
1 person likes this
I saw some of the hitlist drama unfold in real-time. It was and still is a nightmare. It is making my head spin for sure.
joanna - I totally agree with your point. Perhaps this was not the correct forum to 'expand' the issue of the other various ways we composers are 'short changed'. Playing music without paying the creators has been an issue for quite some time. Take the Napster and other sharing software situation from 20 years ago which to continues to this day with software like dc++. I have also long wondered as pretty much every track you would want to hear is on youtube, and as youtube has monetized each play - how much of that makes it back to the music creators?
As far as ideas - I am not technically up to speed on security options, but here is an idea... over the last few months as a member of SCL (Society of composers and lyricists) and with oscar nominations coming up, I have been receiving many FYC (for your consideration) DVDs and Soundtracks. They have been specifically coded supposedly with watermarks and other data to specifically mark the copy as shipped to me. So if a copy is made, supposedly my data will still be on it and traceable back to me. This may not specifically address the generic issue of listening without paying, but could serve a useful purpose for identification of illegal copies. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_watermark and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking
Shanika Freeman it certainly was a headspinner. Hope you're feeling slightly better about it now the website is down (for now at least)?
Joel Irwin You're totally right that we should be talking about the ways we're short changed- the system is stacked in so many ways and we definitely, definitely need to be talking about it! But sometimes it's good to zoom in on one particular way, especially when the incident that bought about this post affected pretty much the entire industry.
Napster and software sharing is an interesting comparison. I wonder how much people use it these days when like you say almost all music is on YouTube now. It would be interesting to know. To respond to your point about YouTube royalties- more money goes back to creators on YouTube than other platforms like Spotify, but it's still very small amounts (we're talking cents and pennies). There's a campaign here in the UK from our union (The Ivors Academy) and other partners to change the way streaming royalties are paid, but there's no actual change yet. Presumably there are similar rumblings over the pond. I've just been digging into my royalty payments with some fairly shocking results so perhaps there's fodder for another post on that soon...
That's a really interesting thought on the digital watermarking. Not sure how an individual would implement it, but definitely something to research and look into. Thanks for sharing. It's so strange with NFTs because they're often not really selling the track, but perhaps you can embed some type of anti-NFT data that shows the track isn't available for minting- though if you had to run it through an algorithm to be able to hear it, I'm not sure how effective it'll be. I'll keep researching anyway, it's a really good idea so thank you.
Highly recommend you join SCL if not already a member. They have many deliverables and products that are quite beneficial to professional composers. Two most relevant for this dicussion is a weekly (Fri) summary of all the news related to music, fillm, and composing that would be of interest. They are also presenting the following zoom (you must be a member to attend):
DEMYSTIFYING SYNC
TUESDAY, February 15, 2022
6:00pm (ET) / / 3:00pm (PT)
WITH BROOKE PRIMONT
Senior VP Sync Licensing, Concord Music Publishing
ANTONELLA DI SAVERIO
Senior Director, Administration and Publisher Relations, BMI
MODERATED BY ELIZABETH ROSE
SCL Board Member
Chair, SCL SongArts NY
Unfortunately the SCL doesn't seem available outside the US Joel. Hope the seminar goes well though, sounds interesting.