Ideas for preventing our beats getting stolen

[Armani]

Aight so, ever since he-who-shan't-be-named, I've grew a bit skeptical of uploading beats, because well, let's say if there's a beat battle somewhere else other than illmuzik; he could be downloading our winner beats and submitting them as his own right now. who knows?

I personally wouldn't mind that much, I don't upload the goody goodies anywhere anyway, and tbh I hate nagging about stuff, especially with no replacement proposal, like "if this is so shit, why don't you step up and tell us how to fix it?", but yeah I actually do have an idea.

so we can't put tags on our beats and that's totally fair and understandable, but what if for a substitute protection, illmuzik was coded to automatically put a slight quiet tag that goes "illmuzik.com" over every uploaded beat at certain timings?

 

[2GooD Productions]

tagging beats is the only real way, when I had my website I built the music player to play a tag overlay mp3 over the top of the music mp3, if people managed to hack it they would download the overlay mp3 of just tags. Was so long ago cant even remember how I did it now.
I do like your idea though, just throw illmuzik tags on the beats is a fair way to keep our work protected, will probably be some maths involved to get the timings right though. Its too early for my brain to even contemplate the maths involved. Just fixed times will be so much easier, but the tags will just appear randomly on the beats as all beats have different tempos.

Could set up a daw template that you can just drag an mp3 into, adjust tempo to match then export. That does make a lot more work for every battle though.
To be honest that would be a huge pain in the arse to do every beat for every battle.


EDIT: Ive solved it, lets get @Fade to make some illmuzik tags, then if we want to have tags on our beats to protect them we can put the tags on ourselves, get all the timings right etc. Then we can choose to use them or not.

 

[Fade]

Why am I getting dragged into this? The fuck.

Tags are annoying, but also, it's a lot more work. I can't be adding tags to everyone's submissions, plus it's not just battles too, it's just the Beats section as well. Plus, there's battles going all the way back to 2003.

Some of those beat selling sites add automatic tags to your beats, but the way that works is you upload your beat and it automatically edits the beat. I tried that a while ago but I hit a dead end because of an old script that's deprecated now. I don't know what they're using on those beat selling sites. But also, that doesn't work for all the previous stuff uploaded.

The way I've always looked at it is no matter what you upload, it can be jacked. So if someone jacked you off then it's best to just "name and shame", but that's if you even find out someone used your beat, even if you have tags on it.

I can look into the auto tags stuff but I wouldn't get my hopes up. But also, it would have to be a really quiet tag because you don't want to hear that shit all loud with some radio guy voice "THIS BEAT IS FROM ILLMUZIK DOT COM. WITH THE H-H-H-HOTTEST BEATS ONLINE".

 

[Iron Keys]

Easy way to protect your beats from getting stolen...

Make shit beats.

 

[Fade]

I did a quick check and it looks like there might be something to this. I'll have to "get my dork on" and test it.

 

[Iron Keys]

I kindaaa like the idea of putting them on ourselves.

I mean to really top your beats getting stolen you'd have to put it over every verse and chorus otherwise someone could chop it easily.

People could also reverse the phasing to remove it, people could also use vocal removal.

People could also just remake it, which is what the commercial acts will do.

 

[2GooD Productions]

I kindaaa like the idea of putting them on ourselves.

I mean to really top your beats getting stolen you'd have to put it over every verse and chorus otherwise someone could chop it easily.

People could also reverse the phasing to remove it, people could also use vocal removal.

People could also just remake it, which is what the commercial acts will do.

this is why i dont bother with tags any more

 

[Fade]

I kindaaa like the idea of putting them on ourselves.

I mean to really top your beats getting stolen you'd have to put it over every verse and chorus otherwise someone could chop it easily.

People could also reverse the phasing to remove it, people could also use vocal removal.

People could also just remake it, which is what the commercial acts will do.

People can also fuck off and make their own shit too.

 

[Iron Keys]

this is why i dont bother with tags any more

I guess it would mean they at least have to do some work in stealing it, so at least they've 'created' a stolen piece of work. haha

 

[Armani]

I kindaaa like the idea of putting them on ourselves.

I mean to really top your beats getting stolen you'd have to put it over every verse and chorus otherwise someone could chop it easily.

People could also reverse the phasing to remove it, people could also use vocal removal.

People could also just remake it, which is what the commercial acts will do.

I'd be down for putting them on myself, but then an "illmuzik.com" tag would be announcing that it's me so it'd pretty much become my tag if no one else does it, and I don't think we should force everyone to do it either, cuz like personally I'dn't mind but it'd be a pain in the peoples asses.

I'd say fade could at least go for putting tags on every beat uploaded from now on. no need to worry about fucking up 20 years worth of musical history, yk?

 

[thedreampolice]

Steal away. It doesn't matter. If the track goes somewhere I can prove its mine, and people that steal beats don't have long careers anyway. I have plenty more songs in me, I will just make another. The thief won't.

 

[OGBama]

Do @thedreampolice your copyright all of your work? I'm not at that point personally but it's a question I always ask.

 

[Iron Keys]

Do @thedreampolice your copyright all of your work? I'm not at that point personally but it's a question I always ask.

Copyright is made the moment you create something.

 

[OGBama]

Know @Iron Keys that already but I'm asking from the LOC view.

 

[thedreampolice]

@Iron Keys is correct, its technically copy written right away. You just have to be able to prove you created them, the original project file is all you need to do that. That being said just before I get something on an album I register the song with a PRO organization like BMI or ASCAP. I am an ASCAP artist so I usually register the song there for proper royalties etc. I have been an BMI artist in the past as well. If you want to get serious about what you are doing joining a PRO organization is the first step.

 

[nikwen]

Saw an interesting post on Reddit yesterday where a guy got his beat stolen and the song in question went #1 in the charts:




There's also the following line of thought: By making your own beats "uglier" by adding an IllMuzik tag to every verse and every chorus, you might protect them from being stolen, but you also annoy every listener. This won't help you with winning competitions and it won't help with attracting rappers who'll purchase your beats.

Yes, you might reduce the possibility of people stealing your beats, but you'll also possibly lose out on the good stuff. Not sure if it's worth all of the effort.

 

[Fade]

As I'm looking at the coding aspect of it, I really don't like this idea of tagging, that's why I never really pursued it. It's true that it will make the beat ugly or whatever.

Whatever you upload can be stolen from anyone if they know how, that's it. Period.

If you want to protect your beat, I understand, but if that's the case you should copyright your stuff to begin with then.

 

[thedreampolice]

@nikwen To answer the Reddit question, yes get your lawyer involved and have them handle it. I sign so many contracts these days my lawyer is always busy. It sucks that you need that but as you move up in this industry its a reality that you need a lawyer.

 

[Iron Keys]

@nikwen To answer the Reddit question, yes get your lawyer involved and have them handle it. I sign so many contracts these days my lawyer is always busy. It sucks that you need that but as you move up in this industry its a reality that you need a lawyer.

At music college they were asking us as an artist who the first person you want is...

People were saying record label, manager, promoter etc etc

But they told us the first person you want is a Lawyer.

and make sure you get one who is familiar with the music industry so they know what to look out for and what's reasonable in contracts.

 

[thedreampolice]

absolutely agree!