I just found my music was being offered up free of charge by YouTube in their AudioSwap program. This allows people to use music in their videos without paying royalties. I had no idea this was going on and have no idea where YouTube obtained my music to offer it. Some places my music is credited and some places it is not. One one particular video, there were more comments about my song being good than there were about the video, and yet I was not even credited! I emailed the poster to ask for credit, but haven’t heard back yet. I also tried to leave a comment claiming credit for the song everyone liked and was blocked as a spammer! The thing that bothers me the most is that someone had used an instrumental mix of one of my songs. Since I don’t have instrumental mixes posted anywhere for download, I really want to find out how this happened. Thankfully, this particular person at least credited me with the music, but one of her commenters “corrected” her and said the music was actually Flat and Scruggs, LOL (well, if you’re going to be mistaken for someone, I guess you could do worse) Someone had used my song Dear Johnny (a tribute to Cash) in a video about John Denver! I guess, in a way, I am happy that so many people are enjoying my music, but I also feel pretty taken advantage of. I mean, I am an indie artist and trying my best to scrape to make a living playing music, and here’s this huge corporation offering up the songs I have written, recorded and sung for free and sometimes without credit. I have contacted YouTube about this and am waiting for a response. I don’t really want them to make the people stop using my music, but I would like to have the option to approve/disapprove, get credit, and maybe even get a dime or two from it. Ah, the joys of the modern music business!
Angela
