You’ve come up with a hot track, one so pant-wettingly epic that it’s guaranteed to be used by every DJ in the world, and be heard coming out of every car and by every passive listener on public transport. You put it out through an online shop like leading house music purveyors Traxsource, lean back, and wait for the lorryloads of cash to come rolling in. Except that this is the internet, and the chances are that your ultra-hot chooon is being passed around like a joint at a party and turning up on every sharing portal in the known universe. If only there was a way to pay a small fee and have your creations protected and have notices served on those foolish enough to mess with your work… oh wait — that’s what AudioLock is for.
Traxsource wants you to sell more, and has partnered with AudioLock to offer a 20% discount when you sell your music through their music portal. Let’s read the words:
Traxsource partners with AudioLock in an industry first
Traxsource has partnered with the leading music specific anti-piracy service AudioLock to help boost sales for labels using their platform. The innovative deal, the first of its kind, allows anyone who sells their releases on Traxsource to get an exclusive 20% off AudioLock’s anti-piracy services simply by ticking a box within their newly integrated systems. Traxsource is the first digital download store to offer such a facility to its users.
Traxsource’s co-founder Brian Tappert stated “Traxsource was launched in response to music piracy and after speaking to labels and trying systems for ourselves it is clear that AudioLock is the most effective solution available. We wanted to highlight to labels that everyone is affected by piracy and that they can do something about it. We are confident that labels will see a marked difference in expected revenues and chart positions.”
Ben Rush, AudioLock CEO noted “Half of our staff enjoy DJing so we have been well aware of Traxsource as a download store for many years. We’re delighted they have seen the potential benefit for labels to work with us and we are very excited to be able to extend our reach to help protect yet more labels with this partnership.”
The deal provides labels with discounted access to the specialist music anti-piracy company, which is ranked as the leader on the Google Transparency Report for the width of sites (Specified Domains) from which it clears infringing links from Google’s search engine. No other music specific anti-piracy service removes infringing material from as many Specified Domains as AudioLock according to Google’s statistics. With almost a single click it also makes it quick and simple for a label to start protecting a whole release.
WHAT IS AUDIOLOCK?
In a nutshell, AudioLock is personal security for your music. Should you choose to use them for your current tracks or back catalogue, they’ll do the following on your behalf:
High Priority Protection, just £5 per track
- Scans continuously 24/7
- Scans websites, forums, blogs, file search sites, torrent search sites, social media sites and search engines
- New feature also scans YouTube and SoundCloud allowing for easy removal of content from these sites
- Removes files from file lockers (also known as cyber lockers)
- Removes infringing site links from Google and Bing
- Removes torrent links from torrent search engines
- Fast takedowns (within a few minutes) for the majority of file lockers
- Downloads and fingerprints each file to match it against your content
- DMCA notices automatically sent
- Realtime stats showing the state of each link
Back Catalogue Protection, just £1 per track
- Exactly the same as above except the scanning is much slower, only checking once per fortnight.
That’s pretty rigorous if you ask me. It’s like having black ops teams keeping an eye on your stuff and dealing harshly with people who don’t show suitable respect. Here’s a video showing how it all works:
Clearly AudioLock is comprehensive and as such is getting the backing of some heavy hitters in the music industry. Obviously nothing is going to 100% effective, and people will always find ways to avoid measures such as AudioLock. But casual sharers will be more inclined to buy if they can’t find what they’re after via the usual avenues. And those who use your music for mixtapes and videos without permission will be less inclined to do so if they’re getting DCMA notices too.
The pricing is considerably better than I expected, and doing it on a per track basis for just £5 a month seems like an absolute bargain. The question is if people not sharing your music has an impact on overall exposure and sales. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword to be honest.
OVER TO YOU
Do you make music? If so, are you up for paying to keep your music in the online outlets and not in torrents? Or do you believe that you’ll be OK with the income that you derive and that the bigger picture of sharing is exposure which in turn equals more sales?
As a DJ and consumer of music, do you laugh in the face of pointless security measures knowing that whatever you want is always available in some dark corner? Or do you vehemently believe that artists should get paid for their music?