Royalty free sources and CR risks?

[Broccoli Shmoccoli]

I'm speaking of sheer inexperience but are safe sources of royalty free material for commercial purposes with zero risk of illegitimate claims or any hassle by the authors/owners/uploaders of that material if they see their material being used commercially in a video reaching ...say... 1.5M views and they decide to actually make illegitimate claims? Is that even possible for them - given the source and their policies? I have a certain amount of unease when it comes to downloading royalty-free material mostly stemming from inexperience but there are people who would go far lengths to try getting something more in return after seeing their material being used in a video reaching a huge amount of views... Is there some kind of a preventive measure one can take to later prove that at the time you utilized the material it was indeed free for commercial purposes? I heard of a lot of examples where honest folks' YouTube channels got handicapped for weeks on end for every kind of preposterous claims and I don't want to get burned. Where should I turn to - to be sure of no hassle coming down the line?

 

[Farley Productions]

Are we talking just about music or as well as video and photography sources that come from Royalty free sites?

If it's music I'd recommend finding a composer who hands over the rights at Audiojungle.net and then visit Epidemicsound.com for a monthly subscription to use any song on their site without any hassle. I hear it's pretty great.

The one site I've had major issues with was Pond5.com. Bought a couple songs for a video production only to find out that the seller was a fraud and I wasted my time and money cause they don't give refunds after reporting a fraud. Plus their background checks on sellers and/or authors is pretty weak. So avoid that one at all costs just from my personal experiences with it.

For professional purposes Shutterstock.com is perfect for Video Productions like Short films and movies and one time use projects. Has a ton of videos, photography and even lots of different licensing choices that are easy to battle on Youtube once you have it. But you do gotta keep track of all of it.

Otherwise Envato.net is a pretty good site for royalty free stuff as long as you check out the licensing rights before purchase.

Anyways those are just my preferences and recommendations. I'm sure others will comment with their knowledge to give you more options as well. =] Hope that helps and have a good day!

 

[Broccoli Shmoccoli]

Hey, thank you for the extensive reply! I really appreciate it. Well I'm thinking of using perhaps one image per video as I'm doing my own animations.
Let me ask you what did you mean by "...lots of different licensing choices that are easy to battle on Youtube once you have it." ?
(I have a feeling that is the reason I dread using this sort of material... it should be hassle-free not royalty-free)

What about wikipedia? Any hassle after using images from wikipedia?
Thanks again..

 

[Farley Productions]

@Broccoli Shmoccoli On Audiojungle you can buy high quality images for "Single-Use" Licenses or "Multi-Use" Licenses. I have never received a copyright claim from using images so you'd be okay there. It's pretty much royalty-free but you have a piece of digital paper as a backup in case something happens.

I can't say I have used images from Wikipedia before. But I'm sure if it's for a video that is within Documentary or Fair Use then I'm sure you'd be just fine. =]

 

[Broccoli Shmoccoli]

Thank you so much! This really helps me!

 

[videoeditgr]

What about wikipedia? Any hassle after using images from wikipedia?

In every image in Wikipedia there is usually the CC0 creative commons zero license, either because they are too old therefore under public domain, either "donated" by users with no rights reserved. (There is also a video section with stuff in public domain although in an odd format). The question is, Anything totally free can by default used for anything by anyone, even "for sale". So if I e.g. make a video of a flower under public domain (no rights reserved, no attribution) and you use it, someone else can take it and start selling it for whatever he wants. This way he can claim from you the (also) end user whatever he wants.... Kind of tricky and confusing.
As @UKHypnotist have pointed in an older thread, it might be considered dublication to use wikipedia material in Youtube.

Offtopic: I have seen so many times Public Domain same and same videos again and again up and reuploaded to Youtube as hand picked and free that is is really a waste of bandwidth and human effort. Try Pixabay's videos front page, those videos maybe are the most popular "free" stuff in Youtube. Music for commercial use channels are simply reuploads from Audio library "hand picked".

Guess all those audio and video files, might be in the row for duplication sometime from Youtube...

 

[UKHypnotist]

The one site I've had major issues with was Pond5.com. Bought a couple songs for a video production only to find out that the seller was a fraud and I wasted my time and money cause they don't give refunds after reporting a fraud. Plus their background checks on sellers and/or authors is pretty weak. So avoid that one at all costs just from my personal experiences with it.

What do you mean when you say "the seller was a fraud"?

It's my personal experience that no site selling digital downloads offers refunds. This is simply standard practice; as there is no way for them to ensure someone won't receive a refund, then continue to use the media they have been refunded on illegally.

I use Pond5 for video stock on a regular basis; have since 2006, and have never had a problem with them to date. In fact, if you watch the video in my sig to the end, you will see in the credits that the video composite it is based on was rendered totally out of Pond5 stock footage!

I got tired of paying to license music, so I started making my own, and now my music is distributed as Royalty Free Stock by Shockwave Sound.

To everyone viewing or responding to this thread, RF and CC0 music is now a danger to your monetization eligibility, if you decide to use music that appears over multiple YouTube channels. You stand a good chance of getting hit with a Duplication charge in such cases.

The same thing goes for CC0 and unaltered RF stock footage, and stills; which is why I learned transparency-compositing.

 

[Farley Productions]

What do you mean when you say "the seller was a fraud"?

It's my personal experience that no site selling digital downloads offers refunds. This is simply standard practice; as there is no way for them to ensure someone won't receive a refund, then continue to use the media they have been refunded on illegally.

I use Pond5 for video stock on a regular basis; have since 2006, and have never had a problem with them to date. In fact, if you watch the video in my sig to the end, you will see in the credits that the video composite it is based on was rendered totally out of Pond5 stock footage!

I got tired of paying to license music, so I started making my own, and now my music is distributed as Royalty Free Stock by Shockwave Sound.

To everyone viewing or responding to this thread, RF and CC0 music is now a danger to your monetization eligibility, if you decide to use music that appears over multiple YouTube channels. You stand a good chance of getting hit with a Duplication charge in such cases.

The same thing goes for CC0 and unaltered RF stock footage, and stills; which is why I learned transparency-compositing.

It makes sense as to why sites selling digital downloads won't hand out refunds.

Pond5 is probably a really great site with lots of content to license and use. I perhaps just got really unlucky many years ago when I went and purchased a song that wasn't by the original seller. I reported the user and their account with said music they used was then taken down. Only reason how I found out was that the company that claimed the song had no connection to the user that was on Pond5 when I asked their admins, or whomever is in charge of that to double check before I issued a counter claim. This was back in early 2014 though. And to be fair any and every site that sells royalty free images, videos, music, and so on has the same chance of possibly having a fraud within their site whom hasn't been caught as of yet.

It's great that you can make your own music! That's a great skill to have.

I did not know that RF and CCO music can be potentially bad for your monetization now. But it makes sense as to why.

 

[UKHypnotist]

It makes sense as to why sites selling digital downloads won't hand out refunds.

Pond5 is probably a really great site with lots of content to license and use. I perhaps just got really unlucky many years ago when I went and purchased a song that wasn't by the original seller. I reported the user and their account with said music they used was then taken down. Only reason how I found out was that the company that claimed the song had no connection to the user that was on Pond5 when I asked their admins, or whomever is in charge of that to double check before I issued a counter claim. This was back in early 2014 though. And to be fair any and every site that sells royalty free images, videos, music, and so on has the same chance of possibly having a fraud within their site whom hasn't been caught as of yet.

It's great that you can make your own music! That's a great skill to have.

I did not know that RF and CCO music can be potentially bad for your monetization now. But it makes sense as to why.

The new danger came into effect at the same time as the new Duplication failure status for channels under YPP review; and can apply to channels who are already partnered as well as new applicants to the program. The first rejections appearing with this result came in late May, or early June.

Now I'd say (I'm a Silver YouTube Product Expert in the new Google Product Expert Programme), that we are seeing 3 out of every 4 applications to the YPP fail with the reason of Duplication being given by the Review Team. If you look through the posts here, you will eventually find two that lead to either forum posts, or articles explaining YouTube's use of this term.

I have another resource to add; a video from the Creator Insider channel. I'll link it.

 

[Nontacky]

Well, that is why I prefer going to sites that are smaller and are not simply platforms were everybody can upload stuff and sell it. As soon as a platforms offers this, there will be people uploading content they do not own for sale = anyone buying it does not buy a rightful license.