Audiosocket: Licensed music for student filmmakers

Summary:Gaining permission to use licensed music in projects can be a nightmare - can this service help?

For students, both understanding and gaining appropriate licenses for projects, academic work, or creative arts -- including presentations, plays or film -- can be a rocky terrain fraught with pitfalls.

It only takes one mistake to send a project crashing down, face a disciplinary hearing, or in serious cases, wind up in court.

Licensing for intellectual property such as images or documents is less complex than that attributed to music. Creative Commons licensed images can be found online through a multitude of search engines, and the guidelines in place for text-based property is generally straightforward.

If you're copying a quote, it needs to be attributed properly. If your play is satirical and based on an original piece of work, then it needs to be obvious as a satire and altered enough to not appear as a carbon copy.

Licensing and property rights has been made more complicated due to the Internet, and in some cases, licensing and property guidelines have adapted. In the case of Twitter, for example, it can now officially be used as a resource in academic work.

For those attempting to use music, gaining permission can be next to impossible, especially in cases where the rights are secured by top players in the entertainment industry.

However, Audiosocket --

a music, media and digital licensing company -- announced this week that they are now offering a service for students to find, access and use licensed music via a hosted platform.

The difficulty in using resources that do not originate from often outdated stock music is something that the company obviously understands, based on their service description:

Audiosocket is a music licensing and technology company that gets music to whoever needs it. Stock music is crap and we don't represent it. Our pre-cleared music comes from bands and composers that create culturally relevant content. With more than 30,000 songs that span 204 genres of music, you're sure to find whatever you need for your production.

Audiosocket U. is the latest product in the Seattle and New Orleans-based company's MaaS (music as a service) platform. Over 2,000 indie artists and composers are part of the program, and currently over 30,000 songs are available to subscribers.

The platform is designed to offer a solution for what is often a nightmare for film students. Participating schools that join the program do not need to ingrate any software, as the platform is fully hosted and managed by Audiosocket. The pricing structure makes it an affordable option for students, as music can be licensed for as little as $5.

Pre-launch, over 20 schools already signed up for the service.

Kevin Bleich, an early advocate of the platform and art student said:

"Audiosocket offers a unique and robust tool for media creators wanting to add quality music to their projects without breaking the budget. Their tools are unique and easy to use and their catalog is superb. Ultimately, they take the music licensing process, which has traditionally been a nightmare to navigate, and make it an enjoyable part of the creative process."

Audiosocket also maintains partnerships with  IndieFlix, The National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY) and Vimeo.

Image credit: Audiosocket


Topics: Legal



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