As I’ve mentioned before, I use (and therefore have properly licensed/paid for) iStockphoto images when I don’t have something I’ve shot myself, both here on Mind the Gap and for other sites I write for. Though I have looked elsewhere online for appropriate visual material that carries a CC license indicating it’s available for 3rd-party non-commercial use, I love using iStock because its search engine makes it fast and its pricing structure and “credits” style of payment makes it easy and affordable.
I just checked and it looks like the photographers are making a “base royalty rate of 20%” on sales. Though I don’t know what kind of paychecks that translates into, this is a model for how artists can be compensated for the use of their materials by “made it at my kitchen table” shops like mine. Hopefully, everyone is benefiting satisfactorily from the arrangement.
A couple days ago I caught a Mashable post about a music service that would be offering a similar deal for similar usages: Friendly Music, a division of Rumblefish. Here is what they say they’re offering:
Friendly Music, a new website by Rumblefish Inc., is a product of the explosive mix generated by seasoned software geeks and haggard music licensing professionals. We challenged one another to reduce the inefficiencies of the music licensing business as it related to the most pervasive new media trend: User Generated Content. To us, it did not make sense for music licensing to take longer and generate more headaches than the creative production itself. So, we joined our powers to create a service called Friendly Music- a website that hosts a comprehensive catalog of copyright-cleared songs, providing music to create the perfect soundtrack for User Generated Content like online videos, photos and slideshows.We began with the basics. First, we built a fast and easy to search website that contains thousands of original songs, to satisfy musical tastes from all around the world, or just around the corner. We then took on the more challenging aspect of educating the public on the hard work it takes to make music, and why artists deserve to be compensated for their creativity. Media creators will be glad to know that, unlike their personal digital music collection, Friendly Music offers 100% legal, and all rights-cleared music for their personal and custom, online media creations.
Now, as you might imagine, this is not a catalog of Ke$ha, Katy Perry, and Justin Bieber tracks, so if you’re looking to echo certain contemporary cultural touchstones, this won’t help you or your hip baby who just wants to cutely dance to Beyonce. Sorting through stock music takes a lot more time and commitment than scanning through visual images, so it will remain tempting to flip through your mental rolodex/iTunes library and use what you know (and know you can’t license/pay for). Still, I hope people respond so that what Friendly Music is offering takes off and can grow and improve. They are partnered with YouTube, so there is a billboard out to the public. The search and sorting function on Friendly Music’s site seems pretty useful and intuitive to me, so if you’re a non-commercial creator who just needs a “country” or “Vivaldi” sounding track, this may put some of your legal/ethical headaches behind you. Plus, it seems like a reasonably priced, easy-to-use way to encourage people to slide back off blatant piracy trends. I’ve always suspected that if people had an efficient way to compensate the creators of work they wanted to use, they would do so. It will take more than Friendly Music, but I hope the launch of sites like this indicates that we’re on our way there.