How a Musician Ended Up Earning $30,000 a MONTH from YouTube
Over 100 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, much of it violating some sort of copyright. How can this be policed?
When it comes to music, we’re seeing the rise of third-party companies that promise to act as agents for artists when it comes to YouTube. Not only will they help with placement and SEO, but they’ll also look for occasions where the artist’s copyright is being infringed.
Here’s an example of that–and how a jazz musician went from making zero dollars on YouTube to $30,000 a month.
In 2001, composer Scott Schreer wrote a roughly two-minute saxophone-heavy acid jazz instrumental called Love Doctor, and the song lives in an online catalogue of music that he licenses to film and TV producers. It also exists in some 1,500 YouTube (GOOG) videos that used the song without paying for the rights. Hunting those stray recordings and trying to collect licensing fees has never been worth most musicians’ trouble. In May, however, Schreer started getting paid by the former freeloaders.
Love Doctor and Schreer’s library of about 1,700 other tunes now bring his company about $30,000 per month from their use in YouTube videos. He’s the test case for a New York startup called Audiam that says it can help artists profit when others use their music. Jeff Price, Audiam’s founder and a friend of Schreer’s, pitches musicians like this: “Let’s go find you money that already exists.”
Big record companies and music publishers already have deals with YouTube to collect money when their songs show up in videos. Small artists and composers don’t. Price wants Audiam to be the middleman for them. When YouTube ads appear on videos while their music is playing, Audiam will claim a share of the revenue and send it along to the artist—minus a 25 percent cut. “It’s magic money,” Price says. “It’s buried treasure.”
Continue reading at Bloomberg Business Week.
