While the debate over copyrighted music is heating up, a new wrinkle appeared last week in the form of a takedown notice issued by Universal Music Group to YouTube. Now, getting a takedown notice from UMG is probably nothing new for YouTube, but this story has a twist. The music UMG was upset about wasn’t even their own. A rap duo called After The Smoke recorded and uploaded one of their own rap beats over a song called “One in a Million” to YouTube.

UMG Asserted Copyright

That’s when the funky stuff started. UMG notified YouTube that a copyright infringement had taken place and YouTube blocked ATS’ song. Only ATS isn’t signed to Universal and the song was completely original by ATS.
As it turns out ATS had opened for Yelawolf, who is now a Universal artist – but wasn’t at the time ATS opened for him. Yelawolf heard the rap beats behind One in a Million and liked them enough to record his own track over it. Yelawolf said he wanted to license the material, but apparently never did. Then he signed with Universal.
At some point, the Yelawolf track, which used ATS’ beats – and was never intended for release – got leaked. UMG took down the leaked tracks, but when ATS put up its own stuff using their own beats, UMG took that down too, saying they owned the copyright for the beats.

If you’re confused at this point, so is everyone else! ATS filed a dispute against the takedown by UMG and was told that UMG asserted its rights as the copyright holder and ATS had no claim. Enter the lawyers. Now, allegedly everything is worked out, but ATS – and many other artists – are concerned about how carefully YouTube (which is a major distribution channel for independent music) checks on copyright claims before acting on them.

At this point, I should mention that for artists who use royalty-free beats, this isn’t an issue. Sonic Producer has a huge library of royalty-free beats that are guaranteed never to get you into a takedown argument after you’ve published your own music. With Sonic Producer’s library of royalty-free beats, you get your music published, plain and simple.

You can use, mix, remix, alter, publish and republish Sonic Producer beats however, whenever and how often you want to. Ahh – the joy of simplicity! Download your copy of Sonic Producer today and start publishing your own music.

Photo Credit: bixentro, via Flickr