Licensing in the Digital Age: Royalty Free Versus Copyright Free

As a creator, I want to produce as much of my own content as I can. There are instances where that idea becomes impossible. Instrumentals is one of those current challenges.

I can write, craft, and publish my cover art, stories, and websites, but sometimes even a creator needs a helping hand. Since I would like to produce meaningful and engaging book trailers and presentations for my Undawnted Channel on YouTube (Please subscribe!), I have endeavored to use other musician's instrumentals to assist me. 

I have read numerous license agreements, and have purchased some music that you have already heard. Still, the royalty and copyright issues are murky at best. You can use X song if you follow these guidelines, royalty free. Yes, but I can use them for my commercial, known as a book trailer? 

The next challenge is: who is being paid for the music? The three songs I have bought so far were paid to one person, not the artist who created the song. So, I went on a fact finding mission to cut out the middleman. I emailed a couple of musicians on a site to see what royalty free means to them, and do I need to buy a lifetime license from them? Important questions. 

In the coming years, I may have to sit down and write a few songs on the computer. Yes, I have written songs in the past. With a grandfather who was a piano tuner and mover, as well as a jazz pianist, music runs in my veins. I spent a year in competitive orchestra and two years in band, playing the violin. When a string instrument was unfavorable to playing in a high school marching band, I opted for four years of choir.

Until my health supports more activity besides editing, reading, and writing, I will continue to be bounced around, uncertain as to how I can use "royalty free music." I rather purchase from the creator to ensure a legal license than using middlemen. I hope that the prices are within my budget. 

I do not want to cheat anyone, but I also like to eat. 

What it comes down to is the fine print. What does it actually say versus how I am interpreting it? 

Legalese, anyone? 

Have a great and wonderful day.

_____

Subscribe to the Undawnted Channel on YouTube. 

With mini trailers, book prevues, and presentations, there is more to come this season. We offer our Silent Movie section, if you don't want to be disturbed at work or home. There is a growing collection of videos with music, as well as music and narration.


Choose your entertainment... with Undawnted.

 

 

Articles and Essays Summer Selections

I have gone through my old articles and essays on the VDP Gazette to see if any of my journalistic writings had relevance a few years later. 

Boy do they! 

From Freedom of Speech and Expression to Law, History, Religion, Women's Issues, Culture and Society, I have many great written pieces. So I am revising some. I am reformatting others. The selection is varied so there is a publication for everyone.

I am updating Undawted's Nonfiction section to include these releases and more that are in the works!

Visit Sonoran Dawn Studios' Authors Spotlight in Articles and Essays to download your PDF copy.

Have a great and wonderful day! 

Manufactured Consent Now Available for Download

Another booklet has been released but on the subject of voting. Does your vote even count?

This time the research paper garnered its own ISBN! Manufactured Consent is a treatise expounding on politics, law, history, and what is means to be an American. 

Our blurb: Voting has become a choice between the greater of two evils. Warring political parties vie for American voters, but is that perception false? Are voters caught in a cycle of picking the same agenda no matter if they go left or right? Discover the history voters were not taught in school and how their rights to govern themselves has turn into the game of Manufactured Consent for those elites willing to do anything for power and greed.

For more information, please visit the Historical Context page here on Undawnted.

Remember to check out our publication Schedule as well as Books & More on Sonoran Dawn!

To download your free PDF copy, visit the Manufactured Consent page on Lulu.

Taking a Stand

I've add a new banner to my blog. One I hope everyone will put on their website and blog. It is important to let the world know that we will not put up with mass surveillance.

I hear excuses of: well, if you aren't doing anything wrong...

That's an immature response. The idea is freedom from this type of mass intrusion. The government is NOT allowed to watch anyone without due process of law and a warrant signed by a judge showing probable cause. 

No more secret laws, secret courts, secret charges. Enough is enough. The secrecy has to stop!

It's against the law. It's against the Constitution. It's against the Bill of Rights.

Therefore the government and private corporations are stealing from you. It's called theft. 

It's not for national security because the more information that is collected and stored places your nation's security in more jeopardy, not less. 

So if you love liberty irregardless of lame excuses, then please join me in protesting the illegal acts perpetrated by our government on innocent people for power and control.

Be the hero of your own life: save privacy and freedom!