Contacting the Artist & Copyright

The song that chose to create our music video for was not our original piece, and we had no input in its creation process. This meant that it was essential for us to attempt to gain permission from the artist to use the track to avoid any copyright issues.

I took to Twitter to attempt to contact Nothing But Thieves, to ask for their permission for us to use their song "Sorry" in our production. Unfortunately, I was unable to gain a response, though we are hoping that we may hear back at some point. In order for us to avoid copyright issues, when uploading our piece to YouTube, we will state in the description that all rights of the song go to the artists, Nothing But Thieves, and we will specify that we are not attempting to take any credit for the track that we have created our video for.

From my production of the thriller opening sequence for my AS Level production last year, I learnt that YouTube have a copyright bank, which your uploads are checked against to look for any potential copyright issues. I knew this year that our upload would be marked that it included copyrighted content, and that this would mean the video would not able to be monetised. It is illegal to take credit for other peoples' work, and to earn money for this content, which is why YouTube have developed this very useful tool. Instead, the copyright claimants will be able to place adverts in front of our video, in which they will gain revenue from. They will then be able to earn money from the song being featured in our video, which means that we can continue to have the video posted in the site without having to acquire and pay for the rights to the track. This also minimises the risk that our video will be removed from YouTube.

Pictured above is a screenshot I have taken from the copyright page of our AS Level thriller opening sequence on YouTube. It details the content of the piece that YouTube has found in its copyright bank, which was 'The Abduction - Gennessee". It shows that the the copyright claimant 'The Orchard Music' on behalf of 'Noble House Records', and that the copyright policy that had been applied was that the video could be monetised by the copyright owner. The disclaimer towards the top of this page states that Ads may appear on our video, which is because the copyright claimant is consenting for us to use the track, as long as they can gain revenue from the views that this video obtains.

When we upload our piece to YouTube, the track will be identified by YouTube's copyright bank. It is likely that the copyright claimant for the track "Sorry" by Nothing But Thieves will lay out conditions that are the same as those that can be seen on our AS Level piece. This means that despite the fact that our video will include copyrighted content, it should be protected from YouTube removing it from the sight, as we are not claiming any revenue, or any credit for the track.