Rightclearing: one-stop clearinghouse for music licensing

Philippe sez, "restorm.com launched rightclearing last week at the prominent Social Music Summit in NYC. The cloud-based music licensing platform provides artists and music professionals a simplified solution that enables them to monetize content through an automated licensing system. In the midst of all the SOPA, PIPA, ACTA rhetoric, and never-ending licensing chaos in the market, rightclearing is well-poised to provide a concise and compelling solution to the needlessly complex licensing labyrinth. Joi Ito, head of the MIT Digital Media Lab and Chairman of the Creative Commons commented, 'I decided to join the restorm.com advisory board because rightclearing has the potential to radically renew the market for art licensing: it's simple, innovative, transparent and fair.'"

One-stop music licensing • rightclearing.com (Thanks, Philippe!)

• [jeligula]

  I knew the daughter of Dave Lambert, a New York City jazz singer of note, who cut many albums. Ella Fitzgerald was her godmother.  She used to work at Warner Brothers Records as a licensing clerk before she became a rural Oregon cowgirl and newspaper reporter.  She knew how to work the system and owned the rights to her dad’s music.  She told me LOTS of things about the business and what is considered right and proper from the business stand point.  She also told me that she made more money off her dad’s music than he ever did in his entire life. As an amateur practicing classical guitarist, this told me more about the artists than the businessmen.  In my musical mind, the music matters.  As it did in Dave Lambert’s.  If Rightclearing has an impact and changes the industry in favor of the artists, I will be impressed, but pardon me for being skeptical.  Either way, I will still play public domain Spanish romantic pieces until the cows come home and maybe make $600 unreported dollars off it each year, if I am lucky. Doesn’t matter, though. I just want to play.

• [Zacqary Adam Green]

  The cloud-based music licensing platform

  Oh, so “cloud-based” now means “it has a website”? Wow, didn’t take that buzzword long to jump the shark, did it?

  rightclearing is well-poised to provide a concise and compelling solution to the needlessly complex licensing labyrinth

  To see prices, it asks me what the Usage is. Is it for Film and TV, or for Online Video? Um…I don’t know. Isn’t online video technically television? What if I put it on YouTube, but then screen it publicly at a film festival? Is it still an online video?

  Do I want to use the song commerically? Fuck, I don’t know. I’m not gonna charge people to watch my film, but what if I take donations? I’m not a registered non-profit, so is that commercial?

  Am I covering politics? Well, that could constitute “representation of a political issue” according to Rightclearing. I…guess my movie has a bit of an anti-consumerist message. Is that a political issue?

  Am I depicting violence? Um, sure, there’s a fight scene. Does that count?

  And, you know what? My estimated budget is $0. I’m literally not spending any money on this thing, just time. Can I just license the song for free now? Oh. No. It’s $30, or $75 if I’m afraid that I might be doing something commercial. Well, I guess I don’t have a $0 budget anymore.

  it’s simple, innovative, transparent and fair

  Not really, no.

  • [L_Mariachi]

    Just speculating here, but the commercial/politics/violence questions might be there to give the artists more agency than a simple price tag. If an artist has flagged one of those topics it may go to them for review; for instance Jello Biafra might decide to allow Dennis Kucinich to use a song in a campaign ad for pocket change but charge Rick Santorum a humorously prohibitive amount. Someone might be cool with Jackie Chan violence but not Rambo violence.

    And if you screen your YouTube video at Sundance wouldn’t it become both an online video and a film? Why would it stop being one just because it’s also another?

  • [nghtflz]

    “Is it for Film and TV, or for Online Video? Um…I don’t know. Isn’t online video technically television?”

    No its not. One is broadcast over the internet and the other is broadcast via satellite/cable. Im sorry but this is really the simplest of concepts that you dont seem to grasp.

    “What if I put it on YouTube, but then screen it publicly at a film festival? Is it still an online video?”

    Then, like with any other licensing deal, you would need a license for the online video first and then get another for a public screening later. Again, very simple concept and its like that for any other content too.

    “Do I want to use the song commerically? Fuck, I don’t know.”

    If you are making money of it – its commercial. If you take donations and youre not a registred charity then they are not donations but youre just making money for your film – so its commercial.

    Ok, violence and politics are a bit hard to define, but I guess it depends on a) wether its the main theme of your project or not and b) wether the song you are licensing is used during one of those parts. These options are really only used because as an artist you can choose to exclude your song being licensable for certain topics. If your not sure, im sure you can ask them.

    It appears to me you have never tried to license a song before otherwise you would know that those and many more questions about your project need to answered before you can license it. Really. Try it. Ask a Record company you want to use one of their songs and wait for the form with all the questions.. You will understand why this is a lot simpler and quicker.

  • [Jonas Brander]

     Hi Zacqary

    I work for restorm.com/rightclearing. Thanks for your inputs and your opinion. We only launched last week and we’re constantly working to further improve the product, but we’re also convinced that we already have a very strong product now.

    If you look at how licensing usually worked before, you will see that it‘s much easier on rightclearing.com. Of course, there are many difficulties we had to face on order to build this system and make it easy to use. There are always both the interests of the artists and the customers to take into account. We‘ve tried to find a good way to make the process easier and more fair for both sides. I will try to clarify some of the points you mentioned.

    Type of usage: We need to ask this because because the price of a license depends strongly on this. The amount an artist expects and wants to get paid if his music is used for advertising compared to use in an online video, varies greatly. So in order to build a system, where everybody can directly license without negotiating the price, you have to make sure that the type of use is clear. That’s how we try to make sure, that artists always are paid appropriately. The definition of an online video is: “published only online”, so if you are going to show it at a film festival, you‘ll have to pick “Film & TV”.

    Commercial: The licensing structure of the system is based on the idea of Creative Commons, which we strongly believe in. The non-commercial use is a main module of Creative Commons. In most cases it’s obvious if a usage is commercial or not: simply ask if you are going to make any money with it or not. In cases where this divide is not quite clear, see what Creative Commons has to say about NonCommercial licenses: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions

    Topics: We want to provide a solution where you can immediately clear the rights of a song. But of course there are some cases where the artist wants to have control over how his music is used. For example, many artists think it could be really bad for their image to have their song in a political campaign for a party they do not support or even disagree with strongly. That’s why we need to ask this. So if you are unsure, if your project contains any sensitive topics, just pick them to be on the safe side. You will then be shown the songs that you are allowed to use immediately and those that you need to first send a request to the artists, where you will be able to describe your project in more detail. The artist can then decide himself, if he wants to allow you to use the song. The request has to be answered within 48 hours.

    Budget: Every artist has total control over the prices, we don’t set them. Of course, there are artist that want to charge money for every project even non-commercial ones, so if you want to use their song, you‘ll have to pay them. That’s their choice to make so that’s just fair. You might be able to find CC BY songs that you can use for free, even if your project is commercial and if it’s not, you can find even more CC BY-NC songs (see Creative Commons license definitions here:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/).

    We think we‘ve reduced a lot of the complexity with rightclearing. Of course, we would love it to be even easier, but you always have to take into account both sides, the artist‘s and the customer‘s. We think it’s really transparent and fair. Every artist sets his prices as he sees fit and gets 100% of the price he set directly to his PayPal account. I personally don’t know any other platform with conditions like this.

    We are looking forward to more inputs; this will help us to make the product even better.

    Thanks a lot!

    Jonas, Head of communications restorm.com/rightclearing

  • [s2redux]

    Perhaps the politics and violence questions have something to do with how rightclearing works: “Find the right song, close a legal contract and download the song file in the desired quality – all without lawyers or long wounded negotiations.”

• [James Law]

  Hey Jonas,

  Does the Category ‘game’ cover all apps?  We’re developing apps that have a music requirement, but they’re not games (education/science is a better description).

  What category should we choose?

  Love the concept,

  J

  • [Jonas Brander]

     Hey James,

    you should choose “games”. Thats the category designed for apps. Its a good input, thank you. In your case it is really a little bit confusing. We will work on the wording right away.

    Jonas

• [renke]

  restorm + rumblefish [1] = millions of automated youtube  takedowns [2]?

  [1] http://www.rumblefish.com/blog/2012/02/24/restorm-automates-music-licensing-with-rumblefish/
  [2] http://boingboing.net/2012/02/27/rumblefish-claims-to-own-copyr.html

• [Kirkamus Anhersnus]

  As a video editor in LA who is constantly battleing producers to shell out $1000+ for a good track. I thought this site was the answer to prayers!

  I tried it 5 different times with 5 different tracks.  The tracks I got back were nothing even close to the ones I uploaded.  The quality of tracks were on par with the “vimeo music store” which I loathe.  Great idea, Great site, Interface was wonderful, but the music didn’t stand up.When I uploaded M83ish electronica I got sarah mclaughlin at a piano.
  Might be a good resource for youtubers??? 

  • [Jonas Brander]

     Glad you like the idea. We know that our soundpool isnt that big till now. But because of already signed agreements we can say,that the pool will have about 100 000 songs at least the next months. So make sure to step by again!