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Season 2 ·

S2E28 – Your Copyright is EVERYTHING

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DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A LAWYER.. SO SEEK PROFESSIONAL ADVICE REGARDING COPYRIGHT.

As a music producer, our copyright is EVERYTHING!

It’s how we make our money, it’s how we claim ownership, and it’s how we LICENSE the right to use our products.

NEVER just giveaway your copyright without understanding what you are truly giving away.

What We Cover in This Episode!

In this episode, I discuss the upcoming 5 Golden Pillars of Music Production Course (if you are a member, you get it free!)

5 Golden Pillars of Music Production - FL Studio Course by Riley Weller
5 Golden Pillars of Music Production will tremendously jumpstart your knowledge by revealing must-know producer secrets and beatmaking fundamentals.

We then get into digital products such as beats, sound kits, preset banks, books, courses, and even how a podcast or YouTube video is someone’s copyright!

INFRINGING on someone’s copyright is extremely dangerous. Yes, sampling is a popular music production technique, but you will want to look into “sample clearance”.

If you are using drum kits, make sure that they are actually 100% Royalty free, as not every drum kit out there is these days! That’s why I always recommend the Xclusive-Audio Drum Bundle TRIO to you guys.. not only because of it having 2,300+ one-shot drum samples, but because it is 100% royalty free to use in your beats!

Are You Sure You’re Protecting Your Copyright?

So as mentioned, when you make the beat, it is YOUR COPYRIGHT.

Your evidence would be your .flp (FL Studio Project), which shows all the MIDI Notes, and how you made the original song. Yes, someone could technically try to “re-create” your beat as their own, but it’s VERY hard to 100% replicate something, as tweaking a knob exactly is nearly impossible on these VST synths.

You may have heard of the “poor man’s copyright” where they mail them self a copy of their released song, but I’d honestly say this was more important in the days of REAL RECORDING.. we beatmakers use MIDI, so replicating your track in-depth with the exact sounds would be very hard to achieve..

Do Beat Tags Actually Prevent Theft?

Producers use beat tags to prevent theft of their beat. If you catch someone using your beat without buying the proper rights (license), this is grounds to proceed legal action..

But, the beat WITHOUT a beat tag is still your copyright.. the beat tag is just one of those things like an extra layer of security to prevent theft, but if someone had amateur audio skills, they could still cut out your beat tag, and keep the beat looping over and over..

The fact is, it’s YOUR COPYRIGHT, and a beat tag doesn’t change that.. it just helps prevent theft, and helps your brand.

Should you still use beat tags? Yes, of course! They help your brand, and prevent theft by making someone do extra work to steal it.. but your copyright to that beat remains regardless of your beat tag over your beat or not.

Agreements Regarding Copyright Ownership..

The power of digital products is non-exclusivity. You can re-sell it over and over.. and if someone wants the exclusive-rights to something, that’s when the big money can come in.. but even then, exclusive-rights is very dangerous and can hinder your business because you may never benefit from it again.. unless you state it in the terms!

You must think about NOW and in the FUTURE to decide the offer presented is worth it to you. If you think $300 today is worth it, then that’s the decision you made! If you find out 3 years later that your work is generating $10,000+ a year.. it’s a lesson learned!

This is why giving away your copyright is extremely dangerous.. you always want to be somehow attached, whether it be they have to always show your brand name when it’s used, they pay on-going monies, or the exclusive buy-out offer is TREMENDOUSLY lucrative.

It’s Your Copyright.. Keep It!

So there you go!

Your music is your copyright.

Own it, and know the power of it.

If someone wants your copyright, that’s YOUR WORK. They have to pay to use it.

If you think it’s worthless, you could be regretting your decisions because of your lack of confidence in yourself. That’s the moral of the story.

Beatmaking Copyright Drum Kits Serum

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Transcript

S2E28 – Your Copyright is EVERYTHING

  1. Season two, episode 28. Your copyright is everything.
  2. Now, if you are brand new to music production, and if you've really only worked a
  3. real job, like for me, I was an electrician.
  4. So when I got paid, you know, you get your basic paycheck, right?
  5. And when you look at your paycheck, everything that's going on, the accountant of
  6. that job does all that stuff, right?
  7. Like you know, who's ever in charge of the finances when it comes to you know taking
  8. off your taxes, or if you have to pay any kind of like unemployment or any
  9. kind of pension thing going on, or whatever you have to pay off of your standard
  10. paycheck, all that stuff is done for you, and you just go to work and you come home,
  11. right? And you get paid. But when you enter in the online world, and it's not just
  12. music production, but we're gonna focus with music production in this episode.
  13. But your copyright is everything, okay?
  14. It's your ownership, it's what allows you to make your money.
  15. and if somebody wrongfully uses your stuff, right?
  16. That's where you can take legal action and and all that stuff.
  17. I don't want to go too heavy into it into this episode, but I just want to let you
  18. be aware of your copyright because if you are new to the online world, and it
  19. doesn't matter if you are selling a beat, if you're selling a sound kit, if you're
  20. selling a book, a course, even this podcast is technically like my copyright.
  21. You know what I mean? So when it comes to copyright, you have to understand of
  22. ownership, okay. So before we get into this episode, I want to talk a little bit of
  23. behind the scenes. So I have started up courses again.
  24. the newest course coming out to the platform is called Five Golden Pillars of Music
  25. Production. It took me quite a while to figure out what order I wanted to put
  26. each section, because really there's a lot of of really kind of golden pillars
  27. music production. But I talked to you about A and B comparison,
  28. fair level matching. Like, you know, if you guys have been in my platform for a
  29. while, you guys, you guys know all that stuff, right?
  30. So A and B comparison is so important as well as fair level matching.
  31. Otherwise, we think the loud the louder one sounds better.
  32. I talked to you about being organized, right?
  33. So many of you guys, when you come into the platform, you got stuck into gear lust,
  34. right? You started downloading tons and tons of free plugins, and you kind of got
  35. deceived by the industry thinking that you need all these plugins.
  36. But honestly, you know, for me, my suggestion to you is just use high quality
  37. premium plugins that you know really well and in depth.
  38. It will allow you to save a lot of money, and you'll actually learn how to use the
  39. tool really, really well, which actually makes you a better producer.
  40. So the trick is having the tools that allow you to do the job.
  41. You don't need thousands of tools, you just need tools that can do the job that are
  42. high quality. Okay, that's the secret.
  43. Otherwise, you get consumed into gear lust, and sometimes you have to undo
  44. the mess you made, which is harder than just being organized in the beginning.
  45. So I break down how to be organized properly to see like true enjoyment and success
  46. with your beats so that you can learn and get moving.
  47. Okay. we talk about using your full frequency spectrum, tons and tons of valuable
  48. tips in there. Now, it's not just like what you think.
  49. Like, for example, we have a kick drum, right?
  50. The kick drum, especially if you're making more like kind of hip hop beats, like the
  51. actual drums that you're using within hip hop, the drum can have, you know, it's
  52. obviously has like its low end, but it also has a high end to the sound, right?
  53. When it has its kind of high hat layer or click or whatever on on the high end.
  54. And when you look at the frequency spectrum of this kick drum, you might think,
  55. well, it is hitting in the full frequency spectrum, but we as beat makers, we know
  56. that the kick drum lives in the low end.
  57. And so it's just important that you are using your full frequency spectrum.
  58. And there's many other valuable tips I have provided for you in that five golden
  59. pillars of music production. So be on the lookout because it is currently in the
  60. editing stage. And again, if you guys are interested in joining the platform, again,
  61. there's 28 courses at the moment, just visit
  62. it'sgratuitous.com.
  63. Okay, so this episode is about your copyright is everything.
  64. So in the digital world, we are talking about copyright for pretty much everything
  65. you're doing online, like whether it is just a simple YouTube video or again a
  66. podcast like this, or if you are creating products, right?
  67. Like a book or a course or presets for serum, or if you create a
  68. VST, right? So now when it comes to copyright, essentially when
  69. someone purchases your copyright, like a you know, you're you're essentially giving
  70. them a license to the right to use that product.
  71. For example, if you purchase a drum kit, what is that vendor's
  72. terms and conditions and what license are they giving you when you purchase the drum
  73. kit? You've got to make sure that you read the terms and conditions to whatever you
  74. are getting involved in. You can't just assume that it's 100% royalty free..
  75. Okay But you have to remember that the person who created that product, that is
  76. their copyright and their ownership, and they are granting you a license to use
  77. their product. Okay. It's like the same thing, kind of like for a book.
  78. You know, if you purchase the book, essentially, kind of like the licenses, this
  79. book is for you. They are pretty much saying that you can't, you know, photocopy all
  80. the text and sell it yourself because that's not your copyright.
  81. Or for example, if you watch one of my courses, it's like the license that you are
  82. given is the right to watch the course and to learn from it, right?
  83. but you don't have the right to take that course and sell it yourself because again,
  84. that is a huge legal mess, right?
  85. Of ownership, and that is your copyright.
  86. So let's quickly talk about your beat and your own music, because that's what this
  87. podcast is about, is music production, right?
  88. So when you make a beep, essentially that is your copyright, it's your ownership.
  89. Now, when people put beat tags and all that stuff, that's just to prevent people
  90. from stealing the beat so that they can't use it on like YouTube and you know,
  91. wherever they are gonna use it to promote themselves with your product without
  92. giving you credit or even purchasing it, right?
  93. Now, beat tags are effective, but even without a beat tag, that beat is
  94. yours. And if it ever went to a legal, you know, situation, you know, your evidence
  95. is well, here is my FL Studio project, essentially.
  96. You know, here's all the MIDI notes.
  97. Here, you know, this is my project.
  98. now, sure, that person can maybe recreate the project and try to. to get it close,
  99. but with an audio, it is very hard to replicate something a T
  100. So if you use a certain sound and you eq'd it a certain way, or if you had, you
  101. know, let's say again the serum and you selected a certain preset, and and if you
  102. don't know what serum is, it's just a virtual instrument, it's like a synthesizer,
  103. really, really popular within the industry.
  104. And be on the lookout, I am creating a serum course here very soon as well.
  105. But again, if you take serum and you sound design it a certain way, again, it's
  106. gonna be really hard for someone to fully replicate what you did because when you
  107. have a knob, right? It's very hard to get it to that exact perfect location.
  108. So, all I'm saying is if you made the beat, you have the project, that's essentially
  109. your proof of ownership, and that you are like the creator of that product, which
  110. means that it's your copyright.
  111. Now, if somebody uses your stuff, again, that's getting into a huge legal mess,
  112. right? That is why people use beat tags just for that little extra protection on the
  113. beat if someone's gonna try to use it.
  114. and if someone does use it, like you know, it's kind of free promotion for you, but
  115. that's pretty much what I want to talk about when it comes to copyright.
  116. So, in this digital world, copyright is your ownership to essentially
  117. anything that you create, it doesn't have to be for a digital product,
  118. but digital products are probably you know, way more popular than ever, right?
  119. Sound banks, drum kits, beats, podcasts, right?
  120. Whatever it is, that is copyright.
  121. Somebody owns it, and whenever you are entering this world that you're starting to
  122. use other people's copyright, and I guess like the biggest example would be with
  123. sampling, right? You know, a lot of the old hits in like the 70s and the 80s, where
  124. people take it, they chop it up, and they sample it to make their own beat.
  125. Now, you got to be really careful there because that's somebody else's copyright.
  126. And especially if the song is popular and big, there's a lot of money that can be
  127. coming after you, right? So you have to understand copyright, all right.
  128. And one thing to look into if you are sampling is sample clearance, okay?
  129. So that's it for this episode.
  130. Just be careful with copyright.
  131. When you create a product, when you create a beat, that is your ownership, it's your
  132. copyright. And you know, just make sure that you're doing whatever you can do
  133. to protect your copyright when it comes to agreements.
  134. If you have to sign certain things, like if you're trying to go with a record label,
  135. or if you're trying to sell your product on a certain marketplace, make sure you
  136. read their terms and conditions.
  137. Like, is it an exclusive thing where if you sell it through them, you can't sell it
  138. anywhere else, or is it something like it's non-exclusive?
  139. So, which means that if you sell it through this website, can you go to another
  140. website and sell it there as well?
  141. And so that's essentially what I want to get across to you is that when you have a
  142. product, it is your ownership, and you are essentially licensing your
  143. ownership to allow people to use it.
  144. All right, and so you got to think that way.
  145. Don't just give away your copyright.
  146. It is very, very powerful, it is essentially your product, and in this digital
  147. world, it's how you make money.
  148. you So if guys want to learn how to make beats, check out my website.
  149. It's all about learning FL Studio, learning how to make high quality beats, right?
  150. Learning the piano, learning drum loops.
  151. Just go to it'sgratuitous.com.
  152. And you guys always feel free to send me an email.
  153. I typically respond back daily.
  154. As always, thank you for listening.
  155. Thank you for your support. And for your business who has ever, you know, taken my
  156. courses or joined the membership or anything like that.
  157. I really want to say thank you because, hey, you're using my copyright, right?
  158. And I really appreciate you allowing me to grow and educate you
  159. guys and helping you really learn how to make beats.
  160. There's been some really, really good success stories.
  161. and just a huge shout out to Avander.
  162. To summarize this episode, do not just give away your copyright thinking that it's
  163. worthless. Your copyright is so powerful, and it can make you a lot of money if
  164. you're really, really wise and understand business.
  165. Okay. So again, visit it'sgratuitous.com.
  166. Thanks for checking out the episode.
  167. I'll talk to you in the next
  168. one.
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