I am glad you are finding our blog useful.

There are many great software packages on the market these days.

Personally, I like to use Sonar Producer V8.5 (PC DVD)

I hope that helps.
cheers
Lee

Many thanks for your comment. I am glad you liked my article and pleased that you find my interpretation clearer than others you have read. That is really encouraging to hear

I am trying to explain the whole subject in my own words rather than be influenced by other articles I have read in the subject. I find that copyrights and licensing can get very heavy going, very easily. Something I am trying to avoid.

I will certainly use this idea. It presents the use of music as various types or degrees of licensing – from personal enjoyment (my home, my car, my iPod…) to music broadcast (whether it is for a website, podcast, video, slide show, radio, TV, Film…) all on the same continuum rather than two completely different things. It brings some communication clarity in an Industry that is changing very rapidly.

I have not seen much in the media about it recently either.

What are your thoughts on second life? Seen any interesting articles / news on it recently?

Regards
Lee

So I’m well aware there is some awesome music out there but you are correct–not all free is really free nor is it all copyright free. And I was reading about purchasing license to use a designated amount times you can use a piece. Makes it confusing when you don’t know how many times a commercial will be aired.

I’ll be adding music to the podcast I produce for tv commercials. Looking forward to seeing what you have.
Thanks,
Anna

Soundcloud has a nice feature where the audio can be played straight away, unlike YouSendIT where the file needs to be downloaded before it can be played. That is just a small thing I guess, but I think it is very slick and I look forward to seeing how it develops. SoundCloud are new and have just raised equity investment so hopefully they will consider corporate solutions in their development
Best Regards, Lee

Your last comment about the devaluing of photographers is already true, as far as I can see.

I just feel that stock photography prices would devalue royalty free music beyond the point of it being worthwhile, however, may be photographers would say certain stock photography websites have already devalued photographers?

Talking about photography versus music you say “Although skill is involved with both activities, it takes seconds and minutes to take pictures compared to hours and days for creating quality music tracks. I think the difference in price has got to represent this.”

I cannot agree with this entirely. After years of training, professional photographers need to spend a lot of money on equipment, studio space and then lots of time with models etc. It is not just about the “click time”. Even as an amateur (but dedicated!) photographer myself I have traveled in remote areas of every Central America countries to take some pictures – mostly on behalf of a humanitarian group in Nicaragua. Yes the click happens in a fraction of a second but it may take years of preparation to get that click happening. And just like for music it takes years of training to get the perfect composition – not to mention nowadays the costly Photoshop application and the time spent learning how to use it.

I was paid $5,000 once for a picture. I had traveled 3,000 miles and spend 2 weeks in one area to take that particular picture which was used for advertising in a popular US magazine. That amount barely paid for the trip including the 30 rolls of photos I shot to get that one picture right. But that was in the last Century before the Internet took off. Maybe I could get $2 for it now J

I do not think we need to devalue photography and the skills required to be a quality photographer to put music in a better light. It is just not necessary or accurate. This would be equivalent to someone saying all you have to do to make good music in few minutes is to get some free drum loops and GarageBand.

Just my perspective.

Many thanks for adding your input. I completely agree, browsing numerous pictures is far easier than listening to a large number of music tracks.

Also, I think the low prices of user generated stock photography should not be comparable to music licensing. Although skill is involved with both activities, it takes seconds and minutes to take pictures compared to hours and days for creating quality music tracks. I think the difference in price has got to represent this.

I am grateful that you shared the story about your music being uploaded by someone else and glad you got it sorted. That is a nightmare situation and highlights issues that all buyers should be aware of.

Lee

You say “The result is that you have more music to listen to but much more substandard quality to sift through.”
Royalty Free Music buyers are starting to find out it does not always pay to look for cheaper music. User generated photos websites are very popular and several websites are now using this same user generated model to market music.

There is a problem with this – a piece of music is not perceived as pixels. It goes back to our basic physiology. I can look at 50 pictures on my screen in less than 20 seconds. I can go through 100 pictures in less than one minute. Photography is for the eyes and we perceive images in Space – not in Time. But if I need to go through 100 “substandard” music tracks to find a really good one it takes a lot more time. Music is for the ears and we perceive sounds linearly one sound after the other. It happens in Time – not Space. When music is pre-filtered the quality of the music is higher and the customer can find several options for high quality music much more rapidly. Personally – and our clients seem to agree with us – I would rather take 15 minutes and find a great track for $30. Time is money. Sifting through music does take time.

You say “There is a new breed of royalty free music website that utilizes user-generated content. This is content uploaded by the composer (well, hopefully it is the composer).”

We had someone who uploaded some of our own music to one of those user generated sites pretending to be the composer of these tracks. That person illegally added the music for sale at a lower price on that website. This is a serious problem. Many of these new websites have no control whatsoever on the quality of the music or the veracity of the composer’s account information. Fortunately and in all fairness to the website owner, one of the website operators recognized one of our music tracks and alerted us to this problem. We are grateful of course but this shouldn’t have happened at all.

Buyer beware! Getting music from one of the many well established Royalty Free Music companies is both a great way to rapidly find quality music at a very reasonable price and a way to make sure the license you are getting is perfectly 100% legal.