Struggling to make any sense from googling, so can anyone help?

I need to make a short video as part of a competition I am entering. Ideally I would like to put some music on it and as far as I can tell the tune in question is copyrighted.

What is the score with using music? I take it most vids online don’t have the musician’s permission, so is it accepted these days that you can use music as long as you credit the artist? Or would I be setting myself up for a law suit? My wee film won’t be seen by many people, so does it even matter?

cheers
Al

Youtube will probably take down your vid. At least thats what they did to one of my sons videos that used copyrighted material.

Same here, the track was tagged or recognised and the audio was muted but the video remained.

You can directly use a iTunes link or something. I’ve sometimes seen videos with the songs in the description part of the video, which has the name and artist and “Buy now on the iTunes store”. So the music is added on top of your video, I guess.

Sometimes they take it down, sometimes they mute, sometime they leave it

seems to centre around who owns the music – I found BMG to particularly eager to mute material

Hmmm…thanks guys. Might just risk it and see if I can get away with it – the lazy option!

Its called AUDIOSWAP.

Load the vid to youtube then click audioswap button above it. This takes you to a library of music approved/liscenced for youtube.

Search by category, recommended or similar length to your video. Preview it… hit publish.. wait about 20 min and it overwrites the audio track with the music..

hey presto legal music!!

The catch is you get those pop up ads.

Here is an example

PS – you tube scans videos for embedded security codes in the MP3 audios.. theyll find you!!

Most people use mp3 tracks for backing.

I tend to edit mine in ‘Audacity’, ensuring they are the right length, fade in/out, etc. and always acknowledge tracks used.

I also use it to check if the correct ‘copyright’ meta-tag data is present, or not. 8)

I’ve never had any music muted or a video taken down. If a track gets recognised then they link to the artist’s channel and sometimes provide a link to somewhere you can buy the track. One of my videos had a Fleet Foxes track and youtube told me that it wouldn’t be available to view in certain countries.
I have produced video for competition in the past and even though I had used very obscure tracks to soundtrack, copyright was an issue for the competition and I worked through the night producing minimal/ambient soundtrack. The video was hosted on Youtube. I didn’t win.

Ah, yes – the films are made in Premiere and the audio is highly edited and rendered out as a final film. Amazing how they can still detect copyrighted material.

I gave up on YouTube when I posted a totally homegrown film, with a totally homebrewed soundtrack.
My Germanically based mates will never see it, which is ironic.
I can only assume some obscure Bundeslaw concerning images of their countryside!

I was thinking of a few short clips of a djs own mix of a few songs together.will they still be able to find it?

Upload to Vimeo, problem solved. I gave up on Youtube after soundtracking a video with a track they have in their Audioswap list- they removed the soundtrack, I reinstated it using Audioswap but it was a slightly different version and so none of my cuts lined up. Asked them to reinstate the original, no answer. Emailed again, “It’s copyrighted, you can’t use it, you have to use the alternative”. Just round and round in circles.

So, Vimeo.

Here in germany, anything Sony usually gets the entire video blocked. BMG and/or Warner tend to be muted I think. Must be some local law I guess rather than whatever deals Youtube signs with big labels. I reckon about half the vids I get linked (of MTBing, skiing, etc.) get blocked here… in which case I just assume that it was the author showing off what their (often rubbish imho) favourite band is and assume the video was pants. Sometimes I’ll use Tor to get round the block, but when I do, I reckon 80% of the time I mute the sound myself!

Vimeo seems to be OK though.

Plenty of creative commons type music out there (Jamendo might be a handy starting place). You just need to find it.

+1 for Vimeo