Let's talk about using music

Baldbiker

Baldbiker

L Plate Member
I'm starting a new thread as the conversation in another thread has picked up on this topic, and I found myself virtually hijacking my own thread! So, here I am ready to talk about using music in my videos.

Music can add feeling, emotion, even meaning to a video. If used properly it can enhance it and give it a nice professional touch. However, it is VERY easy to turn off viewers by playing it too loud, choosing the wrong music, or putting in too much music.
There is also all those copyright concerns. Another debatable topic which Hippo and I have gotten into a bit already.

I usually use a subscription to a site called artlist.io which is a paid subscription. I decided to pay for music so that I have no issues with copyright while still finding decent music to use. Free sites have crappy music, and forget the youtube library, the stuff in there is either way overused, or just completely sucks. So, even though I have to let the moths out of the wallet once in a while, I always have access to usable better quality music and sound effects when I need them. The site is the same one Noraly (Itchyboots) uses.

I still occasionally use copyrighted music. Because Im waaaay below 1000 subs and my videos are not monetizable, I really don't care if I get a copyright message from YT. They still let the video play, they don't require me to delete or do anything, and it doesn't count against me for using it. The only "penalty" I may face is that the monetization would go to the copyright holder, which, in my case, is moot since I cannot monetize.

Hippo has shown concerns using copyright because of the possibility of "copyright strikes". Which I have never received one yet in over five years of posting vids. Youtube police have never come to my door, my account has never been banned for using commercial music, nothing, they just don't want me to make money from it. So once in a while If a song is a perfect fit for what I want to do, I'll still use it. This is a personal choice. If I start getting these "strikes" then perhaps I'll stop.

In conclusion, a lot of you will simply say "do what you want to do". Which is generally good generic advice for any artist, and I do consider this an art, or a craft. Something that constantly requires learning and improvement with practice. I will also "do what I want to do" with my videos, but having a past as a professional musician (20 years of it) I have learned that it's not always about what you want to do when it comes to "selling" your art. If you want to sit in the basement and just play for yourself, by all means, you can play whatever you want, but when you are trying to sell it, you have to provide what people want. Thus after 20 years of playing empty bars and barely paying for my drinks, I realized one day that "Funky Blues" just isn't going to make the charts any more, or bring people to your gigs.

So use music, it may help, but be aware that it can also easily have negative effects on the success of your videos.
 
I like music, I spend more time searching for music than I do actually editing. I think it is a big part of the creative process. It is sound design. That said, it can be overdone it can be the wrong music, it can turn some viewers off.

I have had this discussion with @Drakhen99 many times. At the end of the day, my test for every video I watch, is I put it up ony TV and watch it. It if get bored and zone out, it isn't good.

Hollywood and film makers all use music, a lot. It's all in where and how you use it to keep people engaged and watching a video.

My next two videos are re-worked old footage, I had no mic, so it is 6 minutes of music with some off the bike talking head shots in each. I spent literally hours finding music before I edited them. We will see how they go over. At the end of the day, I enjoy them, I think they are well made, fun to watch and that is all that counts.
 
I'll add. I have a second, personal channel that I have made videos of my motorcycle trips to share with my friends and family and the guys I do the trips with. I use copyrighted music on those, because it is just a place to share those vids (although my AK trip vid has 6k views now on that channel, way better than any of my vlogs, haha). On my vlog channel, I am not using any copyrighted music, because who knows maybe someday I could monitize. It just increases the challenge to find music, but there is decent free to use music out there.
 
I've used music in a few of my motovlogs, but I always use the free YouTube Audio Library music. Sure there is a lot of crap there and much of the good stuff is overused, but motovlogging is a fun hobby for me, not a business, so I'm keeping my expenses as low as possible for Moto Mengy. That precludes paying for any music at all!

Now, someday if I get monetized and Moto Mengy is making enough money to pay for music on its own, then sure I might splurge and pay for some music. Until that time though Moto Mengy is purely a frugally fiscal operation. :cool:
 
I use music in some of my videos, but not all. I used to use the YT library, but you're right, that stuff is overused and not very good. At first, I used it to mask wind noise, but as I develop better mic placement and setups, the wind noise goes down and the quality goes up, and I don't need music. I use it to emphasize things and to add to the video, or replace parts of a vid where my stereo was playing.

I only use free stuff, since I spend my whole vlogging budget on gear, but I've found a few free sites that have decent music that works well for the video I'm creating. NCS, mixkit.co, those are the top 2 that I use.

-John
 
Copyrights are tricky, especially in the US. On YouTube we assume that the YT police and copyright strikes are all we have to worry about, but they're not the only police. There's actually the police, or a copyright owner's lawyer. US Copyright is a Federal law which means one could find themselves in Federal court. What might happen if you lose a case against a copyright holder is you not only have to pay the penalties the judge decides, but the copyright holder's legal fees as well. That's a double whammy.

And if you are wondering, it doesn't matter if you are monetized or not. A copyright owner always has to defend their copyright. In other words, if they do sue a big abuser, but ignore say a little guy like us amateurs (non-monetized motovloggers) a judge will ask them (in Federal court) why they didn't sue the YT motovloggers as well as the big abusers? If their answer is 'they were just little fries', that will actually hurt their case because it will suggest a level of consent by the copyright holder.

This is why companies like Disney will go after nursery schools that have their characters (unlicensed) on their walls, or the windows of their store fronts. Or even why they may go after someone with a tattoo of their characters too.

It's not always about a loss of revenue that may cause someone to sue a copyright violator, but because of the overexposure of a product (music in our case) which may hurt their ability to market it later.

With the exception of my first few videos (because what did I know about how YouTube worked) I've used royalty free/Creative Commons licensed music. I'd like to think that I can also enter my motovlogs into a film festival --

And how come there aren't any Motovlog festivals out there?

- or combine a playlist into an eBook for later publication. I find it's better to have full owner ship of my work with no complications.

I agree that some music is a bit much (I'm probably guilty of that on a few of my videos). I also understand that a lot of motovloggers are just starting out and on top of learning to ride while motovlogging there's the art of editing their footage as well, while creating content that a viewer will be immersed in from beginning to end. Music is used to underscore the emotional content of footage, but it can also have emotional or sentimental value to the editor (us). The real trick is whether that sentiment is shared by the viewer as well.

Sometimes we nail it, and sometimes we don't. We also learn from commenters as well.

- Wolf
 
HippoDrone said:
@Baldbiker have you thought about using your own music in your videos? :)
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Unless I just want to sit and solo play on video, I wouldn't be able to. I no longer have any recording equipment. Plus, I haven't picked up a guitar in quite a few years now. Lastly, if my music was something viewers and the public liked, I'd probably still be doing it :)
 
scooterwuf said:
Copyrights are tricky, especially in the US. On YouTube we assume that the YT police and copyright strikes are all we have to worry about, but they're not the only police. There's actually the police, or a copyright owner's lawyer. US Copyright is a Federal law which means one could find themselves in Federal court. What might happen if you lose a case against a copyright holder is you not only have to pay the penalties the judge decides, but the copyright holder's legal fees as well. That's a double whammy.

- Wolf
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I'm certainly not saying you are wrong, but I also believe it if was that bad then you'd see thousands of youtubers being sued constantly, and YT itself would be much more "anal" about using music. What I have actually seen over the years is a loosening of music rules on YT. It used to be if you used someone's music they would automatically delete the audio, or even the entire video. Now they just send you a polite little note saying you technically don't have to do anything and they let your video continue to roll. If there was high chance of being taken to court I'm sure they wouldn't set it up that way. I also believe that in instances where it actually goes to court and huge lawsuits get filed, it would be over someone profiting greatly from it. It takes a lot of resources to do this, so it needs to be worthwhile, and not so much if it's some "small fish" that used a song in their non-monetized and mostly never viewed video.
 
Very much agree. I think if would be the case of someone who got thousands of views with content that used copyrighted material that would attract the attention of a copyright owner.

But there's always that legal chance, especially if the copyright owner wins in court then the loser has to pay their legal fees. I know of one YT-er whose channel was canceled from multiple copyright violations (though I can't remember their channel as they came back with a new one under a different name).

Like I said it may not be about money if YT gives the copyright owner ad revenues, but about controlling exposure or protecting their copyright in case they take a big abuser to court. More than likely the copyright owners are probably suing YT, so deals are probably made that connect to ad revenue, and in turn YT has their police policies enforced on the content channels.

- Wolf
 
Drakhen99 said:
I only use free stuff, since I spend my whole vlogging budget on gear, but I've found a few free sites that have decent music that works well for the video I'm creating. NCS, mixkit.co, those are the top 2 that I use.
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Huh I've never been to those sites, I'll have to check them out, thanks!
 
Too much headache with this copyright stuff. so I much rather be safe than sorry.

I use epidemic sound. It's a paid service but come on.. considering how expensive this hobby is: motorbike, gear, other bike mods, cameras, mics, etc... a paid music subscription is nothing compared to all that.
 
Alex2wheel said:
Too much headache with this copyright stuff. so I much rather be safe than sorry.

I use epidemic sound. It's a paid service but come on.. considering how expensive this hobby is: motorbike, gear, other bike mods, cameras, mics, etc... a paid music subscription is nothing compared to all that.
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Scratch that.. I just switched to Artlist.io . I was under the impression you can add multiple channels with Epidemic, but you can't, you need either a separate subscription or upgrade the their more expensive package, so after doing a bit more research, apparently Artlist.io seems a good option with very good flexibility when it comes to their licensing agreement.
 
Yep, I use artlist too. Can't go wrong if Itchyboots uses it! I wanted to add a thought about music too:
Music can work if you are using multiple angles and stunning scenery. Then people wont mind watching and immersing in the fantasy ride. But if you just ride around "common" streets or areas with nothing special to look at, then running long segments of music (in my opinion) will drive viewers away.
For example, Im watching the latest episode from Itchyboots and she has put in a long segment of music while riding. I still find myself watching the entire thing because her backdrop is the wilds of South Africa with stunning scenery and wild back roads, wildlife, and using multiple angles. I still can't figure out how she can fly a drone to follow her while she's riding. (it's too far away for follow-me mode and her drone is a mavic Air 2 which doesn't have follow me)
Regardless, the point is if you are using stunning angles and scenery and can keep the viewer captivated visually, then music will help to enhance without having to say or do stuff to keep them on board.
 
Baldbiker said:
Yep, I use artlist too. Can't go wrong if Itchyboots uses it! I wanted to add a thought about music too:
Music can work if you are using multiple angles and stunning scenery. Then people wont mind watching and immersing in the fantasy ride. But if you just ride around "common" streets or areas with nothing special to look at, then running long segments of music (in my opinion) will drive viewers away.
For example, Im watching the latest episode from Itchyboots and she has put in a long segment of music while riding. I still find myself watching the entire thing because her backdrop is the wilds of South Africa with stunning scenery and wild back roads, wildlife, and using multiple angles. I still can't figure out how she can fly a drone to follow her while she's riding. (it's too far away for follow-me mode and her drone is a mavic Air 2 which doesn't have follow me)
Regardless, the point is if you are using stunning angles and scenery and can keep the viewer captivated visually, then music will help to enhance without having to say or do stuff to keep them on board.
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She doesn't. There are clever drones out there that you can set a lock track on you, and the drone will just follow you. :)

I also like the way AndyCamMan or TheLikableRider do it, both have a very similar style where at some stage during the video, they have short sequences of music only with amazing scenery.

It depends on how lazy I am with editing, I usually do one of the following:
  • very lazy: I don't add any music.. LOL - the good thing about moto vlogs compared to other vlogs is that people enjoy the sound of an engine/exhaust, so that kind of makes it easier.
  • sometimes I add just a bit of music at the end, especially when I'm showing other related videos
  • other times, I add music just at the beginning for the intro, and a bit at the end.
  • And if I'm not lazy at all, I sometimes add music throughout the whole video, just to have something in the background when I'm speaking - but I find this a pain in the ass as for a 12 minutes video, for example, I need to find 3-4 different tracks, and I'm no good at finding or choosing music.
 
I have gotten copyright notices for a few videos. One I paid for years ago, so I changed the music, the other two, one was a short that has only 14 views and the other was a song I got from a royalty free deal that I guess they changed their mind. I have one coming out I used a short clip from limp biscuit Rollin, but screw it. Most of the time I use music that is from a guy I know that makes tunes for people and since I work with him, all I have to do is reference him in the credits and I have a couple songs I use that are mine I did years and years ago. I am just not big enough to justify paying another monthly fee. This could become an expensive hobby.
 
Monthly fee? Wow! I remember asking local authors union, or how ever it is called in English, who represents the copyright management in our country, about using a song in my video, I was planning. (I ended doing an edit without music that time though) and they told there is one time fee, based on purpose of the video and the seconds are counted, how much of the song I use, to calculate the final fee. They even gave me the price per second, for that specific song. And the licence was without expiration, they would give me the proper documentation, that I can have that video up. The price per second can vary, from song to song ofcourse.
Maybe it is better to reach out to your local appropriate authority, who manages the licencing for TV, radio and concerts, and ask if you can obtain a licence for using that specific song on YT platform and if there are any time limits, time or regionwise, for publishing. If YT tries to block the video, you would have documentation to contest that and it could be less hassle in the long run, if you do the research first, and plan on using more songs over time.

edit: I should maybe add, that it was not a song by anyone from our country, so they do manage the licencing overall, not just local licences
 
Using copyrighted music is fine. Whoever has rights to that music will have a claim on your video, you won't have the right to monetize it. You will have the option to "remove the copyright music" using the YT editor tool, which most of the time doesn't work well, and end up that section of your video is muted (no sound).

This is not the same as a strike on your account/channel, i.e. if you ripped and reuploaded someone else's video. If caught, that will result in a strike, collect 3 strikes (I think?) that your account (along with all the associated channels on it) is banned. A way to remove strike is if the other party retracts their report against you (but why would they ever do that?).

Anyways I don't have much concern for music, it's mostly very soft background music to fill the "dead air" sometimes, so I just use the free stuff from YT audio library.
 
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