Last fall around October/November, we here at Shockwave-Sound.com started to receive emails from worried customers who had licensed music from our site, used the music in YouTube videos, and received notifications from YouTube stating that the music "contains music owned by GoDigital Media Group".

We were unprepared for this and very much puzzled, because this was music actually owned by our own company, Lynne Publishing, and some of it composed by Shockwave-Sound.com manager Bjorn Lynne, personally.

After a bit to and from, it turned out that this situation was set in motion by a stock music distributor called Audiosparx having set up a "Ad Sharing Program", in which composers were supposed to receive micro payments from YouTube after YouTube had put advertising on vidoes that contained this music, and that this program by default included all music that was listed at AudioSparx.

Audiosparx has submitted 15,000 music tracks to GoDigital and GoDigital are using "fingerprinting" recognition on music playing on YouTube. When a match is found, YouTube sends out a notice to the video uploader claiming that the video contains music "owned by GoDigital" (although the wording has lately been tweaked to "owned or licensed by.."). YouTube puts advertisements on the video, and pays money to GoDigital Media Group -- all of which is happening without the permissions of the composers or publishers who actually own the music.

AudioSparx, to their credit, when they found out the kind of serious problem this setup was causing, they pulled the plug on the whole program, apologized, and withdrew from the deal with GoDigital. This happened in early January, but, unfortunately, as of February 12, the problem has not been solved. GoDigital are currently monetizing royalty-free music without permission from the composers or publishers. Apparently there is some technical problem with getting the music removed from their databases, and this has been their line since January.

We here at Shockwave-Sound.com would like to apologize to any customer who has legally licensed music from us, only to receive disturbing copyright dispute emails from YouTube. Let me assure you that all music licensed through Shockwave-Sound.com is 100% legally licensed to you and that GoDigital Media Group have no genuine rights to claim any ownership over the music.

On a personal note, I have to say that it's disturbing for me to actually compose and produce a piece of music myself, play all the instruments myself, mix and record everything, publish the music through my own company.... only to be told that some company I had never even heard of is claiming ownership over the music and making money on it -- and at the same time sending disturbing copyright messages to my customers who licensed the music from my own site. And all the while, without a penny coming my way.

We will keep asking GoDigital Media Group to stay off our music, and we hope that the problem will clear up very soon. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion caused to our customers.

Labels: GoDigital Media Group, Lynne Publishing, royalty free music, YouTube