Rumblefish Inc. is a music licensing company specializing in all forms of
synchronization licensing with a focus on 'micro-licensing' and online network monetization such as with
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
's
Content ID
Content ID is a digital fingerprinting system developed by Google which is used to easily identify and manage copyrighted content on YouTube. Videos uploaded to YouTube are compared against audio and video files registered with Content ID by co ...
. It covers over 1.8 million pieces of music and it licenses over 20,000 soundtracks on more than nine million social videos.
History
In 2010 Rumblefish partnered with YouTube to allow YouTube video creators to pay a small fee to legally license music for their videos.
In late 2011 Rumblefish entered into a partnership with
CD Baby
CD Baby, Inc. is a Portland, Oregon based online distributor of independent music. The company was described as an "anti-label" by its parent company's Chief Operating Officer Tracy Maddux. It was established in 1998 and offered distribution fo ...
to license the music from CD Baby's independent artists for movies, TV shows, ads, video games, apps, and YouTube.
In early 2013 Rumblefish acquired
Catalogik, a music rights administration software as a service (SaaS).
Controversy
Rumblefish has generated controversy by sending copyright
takedown notices to YouTube alleging copyright violations in videos' soundtracks, even when the user has written rights to the usage of a particular song or recording, or when users are musicians posting their own videos of songs they wrote and performed themselves and to which they own all copyright.
[How Rumblefish Ended Up Claiming Copyright On A Song Uploaded By The Band Who Actually Held The Copyright]
by Mike Masnick
Michael Masnick (born December 8, 1974) is an American editor and entrepreneur. He is the CEO and founder of Techdirt, a weblog.
He coined the term "Streisand effect" on the Techdirt blog in January 2005 and was interviewed about it three years ...
, in ''Techdirt
Techdirt is an American Internet blog that reports on technology's legal challenges and related business and economic policy issues, in context of the digital revolution. It focuses on intellectual property, patent, information privacy and copyr ...
''; published April 25, 2012; retrieved January 16, 2016
In early 2012 Rumblefish falsely claimed ownership of
birdsong
Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs (often simply ''birdsong'') are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs (relatively complex vocalization ...
heard in the background of a YouTube video, resulting in the video being taken down. When the owner of the video objected, Rumblefish reiterated its claim. Rumblefish CEO Paul Anthony later admitted that mistakes were made, and stated that Rumblefish would be improving its process.
In 2015, Rumblefish falsely filed a copyright claim on the
public-domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds the exclusive ri ...
song ''
America the Beautiful
"America the Beautiful" is an American patriotic song. Its lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and its music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward at Grace Church (Newark), Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New ...
'', as performed by the
United States Navy Band
The United States Navy Band, based at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., has served as the official musical organization of the U.S. Navy since 1925. The U.S. Navy Band serves the ceremonial needs at the seat of U.S. government, pe ...
(whose performances are all likewise public-domain).
[A most unpatriotic YouTube hijacking: America the Beautiful]
by Joe Mullin, in ''Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
''; published July 3, 2015; retrieved January 16, 2015
References
External links
*
Music companies of the United States
{{music-company-stub