Getty Tries to Figure Out Music

If you've ever tried to (legally) license your favorite song as part of your multimedia photo slideshow, you've probably hit a brick wall. Song licensing is not friendly to individuals or small businesses. Your choices boil down to using a popular music track illegally, playing slides with no music, or (that very popular third choice) asking your roommate to strum a few chords on the guitar while you record it using your computer microphone.

Getty Images has two efforts underway to break up the music licensing stalemate. Both hold some promise, but neither is ready for prime time...

On one hand, there's iStockphoto's audio venture, which promises to make music and sound clips available at micropayment prices. (This was announced back in May.) It's operating outside the umbrella of the music labels – the only way royalty-free music licensing could be possible. iStockaudio was supposed to be ready by now, but technical issues have delayed the service. From a company message posting last month:

"Up until very recently, we had plans to begin selling the iStockaudio collection this fall, but due to site maintenance taking longer than expected, we’re delaying launch until 2009. We’ve been making tweaks to the audio landing page and functionality since ingestion began, but we want to make sure all our plans take off without a hitch....

"iStockaudio is an incredibly important piece of the world's leading stock destination that is iStockphoto. Customers are increasingly preparing multimedia projects requiring images, videos and audio. With more than 260,000 seconds of audio, more than 7,000 tracks added by 528 contributors, iStockaudio is well on its way as a strong collection but there are a few things we could use. We've got lots of musical compositions and we welcome more, but we could really use more sound effects. You know, the brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrings, waaaaaaa-waaaaaaas, aaaawww-awwwww, badda-bing-cling-bammms and na-na-na-na-boo-boos and general ambient, isolated sounds."

So we'll keep waiting for that. On the other hand, Getty's Pump Audio service has just launched a collection called Premium Playlist. Pump Audio has a great interface and an easy e-commerce licensing system. But until now, all its music has been by obscure acts – much of it good, but nothing you're already into. Now the Premium Playlist actually has some bands you might have heard of. Unfortuately, the selection seems to be compiled from the bargain bin. (Howard Jones? John Denver and the Muppets?) Don't bother looking for U2.

This is an early effort, and it's easy to imagine more acts signing on if the service starts earning a lot of money. Pricing, however, is a bit of a puzzle. Many of these premium tracks ask the user to call a phone number for pricing, which seems to invite the assumption, "If you have to ask, you can't afford it." But a few premium tracks have prices listed.

So yes, you can finally license a Barenaked Ladies tune to play in your YouTube promo video. That'll be $12,500. Meanwhile, some other guy is probably ripping a Coldplay song off a CD for free and using it illegally with no repercussions.

So far none of these solutions is satisfactory, but keep an ear on this.

Comments

[HULA]

Ow common. People that can write music and want to sell it royalty free have been doing so through other royalty free music sites for yonks. What iStockAudio is doing is getting those same people on board. So you are not going to find anything new or any jewels that you can do as same when you type in 'royalty free music' on Google. There are tonnes of sites that accept music from composers to build up their library. Besides you'll have to buy credits from istock while these sites you can buy what you need (so much for micropayment!)

Also if your music is good, would you sell it for a buck (sorry I don't think it costs that low - something like $20+ for a full track right - maybe a buck for a swoosh)? The only good thing about istock (bcause of their exposure) is that it will educate fellas out there that they can't use music they've bought from iTunes or rip their fav CD to use the music.

My concern is I don't want to spend hours listening to music from musicians from all ranges (your dorm room musso to your garage band to the 40 year old music veteran and everything in between). If you are complaining about royalty free music outside being cheezy out there, you can imagine the quality on istockaudio. Maybe good enough for use on web projects but nothing broadcast I assume.

I am also concern what the contributors are using to make their music with? I've heard that if they are using loops, some sample makers don't allow their music to be used to make royalty free music less sell it for a buck so unless istock goes thru every submission checking all these legalities, its not fool proof. Just my thots.

There are some boutique libraries though (some royalty free some not) that do sound alikes (to your barenaked ladies) and produce their own stuff. That would be a better bet as you can hold someone responsible for the music you've bought and there is some QC in terms of quality.