As a buyer and Seller... here is my quick opinion:
When I guy a song, photo or whatever, I want to make sure I can use it on any projects and many times.
As a seller I understand what buyers needs and I good with selling my files for anything and an projects kind. Even a video file sold 30$ used for a 15 000 000$ budget movie is fine for me. BUT what I would like it that if a Buyer use a file to make money with it... like a book, a e-book, en object or a print... name it... I would like to have an extended liscence price yes... but that would be the usual price PLUS a small % of the sales (about 5%). I know it hard to control, but that's how it works with real artists selling their stuff with contracts to printable media for resales.
Think about it... you sale a pic that is used on a book and that book became ZE SHIT !... you got paid let's said about 25% of 300$ for it... maybe more... maybe 100$ for it... that's it ?
As a buyer I woudn't ming to give a % since it's free as long as you don't make money with you object.

That's what I think.

For YouTube users all solved very simply. To clear any copyright claims on your videos(including monetized videos), simply go http://adrev.net/contact-us and insert your details, your video link, and copy/paste the content from your purchased license certificate into the message box. Claims are removed within 24-96 hours.

As a music contributor I think it's very important to have clear and simple language in the license agreement. I understand what it all means, but there has been times where I am buying stock media where I am outside the music realm and I was unsure. I can't speak for other musicians, but I know if I could say one thing to buyers it would be: I want you to easily use my music for your project. I don't want you to worry or have any issues. As content creators we are all in the same boat, and the more we can work together to make an awesome end product. 

For a majority of projects the licensing language can be made a lot simplier, but there is a small amount of time where someone needs something for a kind of "out of the box" project. It kind of blurs the line where simple language doesn't address it. As musicians we can address those concerns easily. When you boil down a license agreement to it's simplist state it is the copyright holder (musician) giving permission to use the music. Those out of the box projects that are questionable can be quickly and easily answered by a PM message sent directly to the musician.

Also I think it would be nice if music that participates in Content ID is clearly marked. I understand why musicians want to protect their music from theft, because it is a big problem, but I think that would be a great benefit for customers to have that choice. Not every project ends up on YouTube, but for those that do, they should know whether or not they will have to show proof of a license. I've choosen to keep my music out of content id because I think it's a better value for the customer, but at the same time I understand why musicians choose to have music protected from theft. I think the customer should decide what they want and let the market dictate the rest.

Good day to everyone!

I am a music composer and i just read what you all have been saying.

And i can tell you all that a good business and a « good deal » is where both sides are content.

I as a composer i invest a lot of money in equipments and lot of creativity and time to make my compositions.

My production music stock is something that i created, i harvested and now i am ready to offer for use. But not to donate it.

On the  sites where i offer my music for license, the buyer explains for what he needs the music than the site acting as publisher or intermediary will offer the best license contract that is clear and defines well the terms of the track usage.

So the buyer of the track pays for what he actually will do with the track.

I do not understand how a video producer imagine that he can buy a track for 20$ and use it in 20 corporate video presentation or 40.

If this 40 corporate videos are for 40 different companies the video producer will not charge for his work from every company???

So for 99$ or 100$ you buy a royalty free cd and use it a lifetime make a fortune and the pour artist is not receiving anything….

As I read it is almost over the right of the composer/writer  to receive royalties when his work is used in Tv airing.

How much is, financially, the impact of a commercial aired  on local TV? Doesn’t seems normal to pay the artist?

If you want to own the music buy it exclusively. Pay for what actually worth and that you can have it and use it as long as you want and so one…

But really for 20$ demanding a multi usage, royalty free it is really shameful and very low for us.

Tomorrow we well have all the big brands using royalty free 20$ deal background music for their marketing and we became bankrupts and slaves.

Nice to hear some inputs from buyers, thanks! As an AE template producer, I'd like to see buyers having the freedom to use a template more than once, without having to buy it again. I think it would help the market / sales...

On the other hand: I've also seen companies, individuals trying to make a business out of customizing templates: They buy 20-25 templates, put them in "their" portfolio, and hope to get clients this way. So...with that in mind "unlimited use" proves itself to be problematic! At least from my perspective.

Thanks, Mike

Another input from a buyer’s point of view.  If I buy something (in my case it would be an AE template or stock footage)  I want to buy it royalty free where I could use it in multiple training videos we produce.  Sometimes we use stock footage once and sometimes multiple times in multiple videos.   I take content licensing very seriously and wouldn't want to violate that as a small business. If it were to go to one use or once for a project then that would be very disappointing and I would have to shop elsewhere. With that said I do respect the wishes of the seller.  They put in the hard work and it's truly appreciated because it makes our job as the buyer much easier and makes our videos look great.  That's my two cents for what it's worth.

As a video producer who buys content (songs, graphics, AE templates, etc.) I have agonized over license agreements far too often.

I will go into my preference for licensing below.  But first I want to share a huge pet peeve of mine with royalty free music - when YouTube tells me or my client that our video "Matches Third Party Content".  I know that producers want to protect their product, but we always pay for licenses and regularly deal with this headache of fighting to prove we didn't steal it.  Clients of ours aren't happy when we have to explain why YouTube is putting ads on their video.  

I have successfully had these removed sometimes and then others I was denied.  In both cases we had paid for the song and provided the order # in our request to YouTube.  It is annoying to pay for a song, and then be told by YouTube that the copyright owner is going to place an ad on our video to ensure they are compensated for their work.  

Ok enough of that, onto licenses: I would like to see licenses allow for all manner of use of the final video product by our clients.  It can be hard to explain to a client that the video we created for their website would require an additional fee if they want to put it on DVDs or air it on their local TV station.  

We also have the need for blanket licenses that allow us to use a song in as many videos as we want. We use these songs for blog videos and short web videos that don't usually have a budget for an individual license each time.  We currently have 3 royalty free CDs we purchase a license to each year for around $99 - $150 per CD.  

Thanks for starting the discussion!  I look forward to seeing what comes out of it.

I think the current system of different licenses for different end usage works well. As long as the explanation of each license and its allowed usage is kept very clear, it's pretty fair on everyone.

On a side note, as a music provider, it would be nice to be able to group together different edits of the same track (60 second, 30 seconds etc) so that the buyer can easily see alternative versions or buy the whole lot as a pack at a better rate. Unless I'm missing something and I can so that already?

I'm both a creative and a buyer.  In principal, I prefer royalty free use of images when I buy on the internet.  With royalty free, I mean using an image for one project consisting of web publishing to multimedia presentations, including video. For printed material, I accept to pay an additional fee in relation to the volume of prints.  After all, it would be out of proportion to pay $20 for an image and then to spread it worldwide printed on T-shirts, posters etc.

I don't put my own work on stock image sites myself because I think the percentage of sales the authors get is far too low.  After all, they do all the work and website owner gets rich on his back, so to speak. But this might be off topic. :-)

From a buyers point of view, the way i feel about it is if i am to purchase either music or footage, once i have made my payment i shall use it in any manner i require.

Why should i have to pay for it, then be told how - when - where and how often i can use it.