Music Theft...What to Do When it Happens to You

Recently I had the misfortune of finding out that some of my commercial music was being stolen and the experience was a pretty big head ache. When it comes to music and the internet, piracy and theft is something that a lot of musicians have to deal with at one point or another.

Theft is something that effects every industry on the planet. Whether it is music, software, retail, videos, or whatever. There will always be a small percentage of people that thinks it's ok to try and steal it. Fortunately, with music, you do have some options. There are things you can do, and I'll explain what steps you can take when you discover your music is being stolen.

Now there are a couple different types of theft that can happen with your music. The first type of theft is probably the most common, and that is when someone rips your music from Soundcloud, YouTube, or where ever.

You can look at this a couple of different ways. This could be a negative or you can spin this to a positive situation. This could be a great opportunity to market your music. Creative Commons Licensing can be used as a promotional tool for non-commercial uses and allows artists, video creators, or whoever to use your tracks with some attribution as long as they are not making money from their project.

If creative commons licensing doesn't sit well with you, that's ok too. You'll just have to add a layer of security to tracks so it's harder to rip with an audio watermark. Basically a watermark can say "Preview", "Demo", or whatever and plays around every 10 seconds. In the music publishing world this is very common practice.

*There is an AWESOME app available from AG Soundtrax called the AG Audio Watermark Generator. Basically it allows you to add an audio watermark to a batch of  your music files. It is a huge time saver over manually adding a watermark to each track individually, and if it is something you'd be interested it is well worth the price of $10. If you decide this app is something you'd be interested in you can use this coupon code: Muscoblogcoupon (case sensitive) to save 20% and bring the price down to $8.

A lot of producers are also taking advantage of digital fingerprinting to protect their music from theft. The idea behind this is if the music is flagged via YouTube, and their is no license associated with the track, then the musician earns ad revenue every time the video is played.

One of the biggest companies out there fingerprinting music is Adrev. Some producers have had a lot of success reclaiming lost earnings due to theft using this service. The only bit of caution with using a service like this is that some music publishers do not want music that is fingerprinted. Over the years a lot of them have become less strict on fingerprinted tracks, but it's something to keep in mind if licensing is a path you wish to pursue. 

Now lets talk about the theft that caused me a huge head ache, and that is the larger scale distribution theft. Distribution thefts are when fake companies steal a large amount of music from musicians all over the place, offer the music very cheap, license it out and keep all the money. They operate under the assumption that the internet is so large they won't get caught. 

If you find out your music is available on one of these markets, stay calm. It's easy to get pissed off and send them a "look  here mother fucker" email, but don't do it. First things first.

Take a screen shot of where your music is available, for proof, which you may or may not need later. Then depending on your situation, you may want to send some emails to your publishers and ask if they signed any distribution deals that you haven't been informed about. Explain to them what you found, ask if this company is legitimately using your music as deal and see if they are a doing business with them. 

After you've asked around and found that there is no legitimate reason why your music is available and you're sure it's theft, then it is onto the next step. You need to contact the owner of the website where your music is being illegally used. Keep a cool head, because it could still be a misunderstanding. Maybe someone purchased a license from you and thought they could re-sell the music. It happens if they did not understand the license agreement. So don't just jump to anger.

Explain in the email that you are the copyright owner, and that you want the music removed from their servers. A lot of time, especially if they know they are in the wrong, they will remove your music. If they do not remove your music after the first email, then it's time to get progressively more serious.

The next step is to send them a formal DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take down notice. You can find them online but to save time I found a DMCA notice generator. Sending this is the first step down a potential future law suit and it typically get's their attention. Keep copies of all of your correspondence, and screen shots, as potential future evidence. If after all this they still refuse to remove your stolen music from their servers, it's time to contact a lawyer. It also doesn't hurt to contact your Performance Rights Organization (PRO), if your music is affiliated with one. 

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