It's been the curse of every guerrilla filmmaker with ambitions of social stardom on YouTube - making a kick-ass video only to have the soundtrack ripped from its infant heart by the all-hearing cyber watchdog that monitors the site for copyright infringement. What's left is a modern throwback to silent movies and a certainty viewership won't peak beyond your mum and immediate friends.For a while there's been talk of building a financial model into YouTube that allows filmmakers access to popular music whilst also remunerating artist for their performances and recordings. It made some bold steps with the introduction of "Click-To-Buy" last year that directs viewers to iTunes or Amazon instead of enforcing strict censorship of the sound. It also had a major victory last week against Viacom which paves the way for a more liberal application of copyright law.
With this in mind there's great news coming out of Portland that a company called Friendly Music will begin allowing filmmakers the opportunity to buy music rights for as little as $3 for movies on YouTube. The license is for non-commercial use, but I think it's an amazing step forward in removing the ambiguity that filmmakers face between "fair use" and "criminal" when it comes to online distribution.
Hopefully the format will take off and provide an additional revenue stream for artists whilst helping to lift the quality of the content posted to YouTube.
Well, in theory anyway. (I'm sure there's still many more "Funny Cat Playing Piano" videos to come).
Check out Friendly Music HERE.
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