Qualifying for High Value Votes: How to Provide Evidence YOU ARE YOU and YOUR MUSIC is YOURS
As you may know, I'm (in a small team) manually curating music related posts to which we give undervalued posts an extra boost. With todays Steem and SBD values, we give out up to 60$ with a single vote.
A type of post we consider for upvote is original music.
In this post you'll read about:
- Trend: Increase of Illegal Music uploads and Identity Theft
- Suggestions how to provide Evidence You are You and Your uploads are Yours
Trend: Illegal Music Uploads & ID Theft
Lately I noticed more and more music uploads to DTube, DSound and similar services; Which is nice to see!
However, I also noticed more and more illegal uploads, ie ripped music from some internet source and uploaded to the Steem blockchain through eg DTube/DSound without the user having the rights to the music.
In addition, I see more and more accounts that maybe based on stolen identity.
Recently I came across an account claiming to be Robert Hood! Well, this artist I know pretty well (not personal, but I know who he is, I know his music, I know how he uses social media)! And I can tell you, this user claiming to be Robert Hood and started uploading and sharing music by Robert Hood, is NOT Robert Hood! Although I still cannot be 100% positive about it, I'm for 99,9% for sure that my conclusion is the right one. For instance, nothing was provided as evidence that this user is Robert Hood. Images used in posts are all available at the usual internet sources. The username is not the username Robert Hood uses at all his other internet channels. No personal content is shared etc etc etc. And I never ever got a reply on my question I asked this user to provide some kind of evidence that this user is indeed Robert Hood.
Suggestions How to Provide Evidence
For me (us) to determine if your track(s) you share are yours - whether that be a YouTube/Soundcloud share, or an upload to DTube/DSound - or at least you have the rights to share/upload (maybe you are a label owner and have an agreement with your artist to share his/her work) I MUST see some kind of evidence.
I therefore request anybody who share/upload their own work to provide such evidence. This can be done in various ways, but what will help for sure:
- Provide links to your Soundcloud/YouTube/Website/Facebook and other external sources in eg your Steemit Profile, and/or Introduction post, and/or even better, in each post you make;
- Use same name on Steemit as you use in your external resources;
- Show recent uploads to your external channels, matching your shares/uploads here at Steemit/DTube/DSound;
- Post selfies here at Steemit/DTube/DSound that you also use at external sources, or at least something that I can match faces with;
- Post videos with you in it including a hint that it is a very recent recording by naming eg Steemit, Date, or like the OpenMic uploads are done refering to a week number.
When following above rules, this may not give 100% evidence, but I would get a warm feeling (most of the time at least) about you being who you say you are and the music is yours. Having such warm feeling, your posts made it to the pool of post that I consider for a vote.
Of course, you don't have to follow the rules given, that is entirely up to you! You may not be interested in some additional votes and post rewards :) Note that when I'm not having a positive feeling about you being genuine and/or you don't own the rights to the music, I'll not hand out any vote. That's all :)
Nice idea my friend!, there surely is people looking to abuse the system, specially now when steem and SBD price are so high... I myself have doubt in the past about some artist users, fortunately i got to confirm they where the real deal... I have been using external sites less and less lately, but i realize i should use them more to bring more people here :)
I can assure you, the abuse is dramatically increased in the last months. And I can also tell you that quite a number of Steemians just believe whatever they read, and that increases the abuse even more since votes will get to their posts anyway. BUt my vote they will not get. Anything that I have not an almost 100% good feeling about, I ignore, not only now, but I ignore those users 'full stop'.
It's easy, use dtube to verify. @Alao is a good example of supporting and in a sense verifying his identity in both platforms.
I like the idea of making a short video of you saying you're uploading the track to DSound. You could make it a requirement - an accompanying 'video signature'. Just my 5 cents
That is a very good suggestion indeed! Your 5 cents are valued a lot more than the 5 cents! :) Here you go!
Ha ha, thank you! And also, Musicoin verifies musicians by having you link your Soundcloud, Youtube, Twitter, etc.. account - like you said in point 1. But then THEY verify you. Obviously, it adds an extra step of verification BUT given that DSound is growing rapidly, a verification process/team will need to be created at one point or another.
I do agree, verification by the service owner supporting media upload would be the best way forward. However, since such verification is not 100%, the service owner can argue to not want to implement such verification process. I can imagine, when having a verification process, one is - by law and in court - more responsible when illegal uploads are done and contested. I guess a reason for YouTube and Soundcloud not to have such verification process.
Hey fellow steemers, could you check out some of my music. I'm trying to build up a following and my main output is music but I struggle to get noticed as I imagine we all do! Thanks for your efforts.
I give everybody the same chance, so make sure you post with the #music tag and I'll see your posts there. Note: everybody has the same problems with getting noticed. Engaging with meaningful conversation with other Steemians is the key to build your own little community within Steemit.
Yeah I normally use the #music tag. Gets lost in a sea of music. Hey, it is what it is. I'll keep going and building on it. Thanks for checking out my DigitalBusking session too. Right now I'm still experimenting with the technical side of things such as using a mic close to my vocal or just one mic to pickup the full performance out of shot. I'm leaning towards the latter. Whats your thoughts on that?
I have no clue hahahaha, I'm just a music fan, nothing more than that.
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Full heartedly agree Bishop , well said !
Thanks for you comment and feedback. I'm not part of DSound, you may like to address the question on verification control using your suggested service to them. You posted the tutorial document here on Steemit?
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Thank you for that and I am always providing a link to the original sound published on my Website so that people see that is really me. How is the licensing classified? I provide the sounds on my Website under Creative Commons CC BY and Public Domain CC0. Do you think its a good idea to let people in each post know about Licensing? I know in Bandcamp or on SoundCloud the owner can choose what Attribution he or she would like to integrate. But, for now on I will write it in the description.
The Steem blockchain does not provide a field to store the license given to a track/song. A shame, a Flaw even of the Steem blockchain IMHO. You could take the approach you take, always mention license offered in the post. You could also take the approach you only mention the license in the post, when you somehow restrict the use of your material. Although I'm not a musician, therefore I don't upload music at all, I would prefer the suggestion of always including the license terms in the same post as you post/share the music with. That makes it clear at all times for everybody :)
Got it! I will do that because it is important for people who working with sound what licensing is provided. Thank you for the feedback and great work :)
Wish you all the success! Looking forward to your works.
Thank you so much and lets make this world a better place again! Positivity :)
Absolutely! :)
How are we tackling the upload of ripped off music? As far as I can see, flagging is the only tool available.
Yes, flagging is the only tool we have available indeed. But still, that is not sufficient, since the music post is still on the Steem blockchain, and the media file is still on the IPFS-backends used by DTube and DSound. However, I think this IPFS-backends are third party services that needs to be paid (done by DTube/DSound) to stay accessible. But for the first period of time, the files will be accessible, since they are paid for some time window into the future.
Steemit UI hide posts that are flagged sufficiently, but that does not mean other user interfaces hide flagged posts (well: semi hide, since it is indicated that something is hidden and you can undo that). At the moment there is no possibility build in to the Steem blockchain to DELETE a link to some illegal upload; That is a BIG FLAW IMHO. Services like VIUWLY, have the DELETE function build into their blockchain and therefore much better equipped to fight illegal uploads. LBRY has a copyright notification system similar to what YouTube has; That in itself will not prevent illegal uploads but it provided more than what the Steem blockchain and services on top of it, provides.
VIUWLY, I’ll have a look.
I do think dSound and dTube are going to find some challenges if they get some serious traction and people start wanting to clamp down on people monetising others work.
Yeh, they have to do something wrt fake and illegal stuff.
I have recorded a lot of music for myself over the years. I never share my music because I am very self conscious about it. Steemit is the first venue in which I have ever shared my music. I therefore have no external sources to validate my music. But I guess I am the exception to the rule. Hopefully it will be apparent that my music is mine by the unique style, but I suppose some suspicion is a natural side of effect of me being an extreme introvert yet a serious musician at the same time. I really did not think about it until a read this post.
Super you publish your work through the Steem blockchain. You can establish your identity by posting video material including some indication it is a recent video and you included matching eg a photo you use in your Steemit profile. Include in that video also the music you may also post as an audio file, and this shows to some good extend that you are you and the music is what you have in your hands.
Good point. The only problem is I did not want to show my face. I'll have to think about that one. Thanks for the advice! I have done an open mic video without showing my face. Maybe I can do something a little different along the same lines. Thanks again!
I somehow understand you dont want to show your face, but that will make it SUPER HARD for other to really believe you. Since what you can do, and many actually do, is rip some music from YouTube, and post it to DSound/DTube and try and get votes; And especially since DTube and DSound do not have any verification policy, and they give very good upvotes to nice sounding music, more and more users are practising this, ie illegally using other artists music and claim it is theirs. I do look at identity and original music, and when I dont get a warm feeling, I'll not give any votes. And I will probably not be the only one :) But that said, you may not require my vote to get (some) rewards on your publications :)
True. It is really unfortunate. Oh well, I am having fun anyway. A few people have listened to my music which is more than in the past. I will just keep posting anyway. No one will ever find the music posted elsewhere because I only post it here, so there should not be a problem. It should still be fun and that's what matters. Thanks for all of the advice.
In my video I posted for open mic, I show my chin area, I could maybe do something like that. Just brainstorming. Thanks again!
Yeh cool, no worries. And yeh, I really like to believe you when you say your music is your music, and your posts to Steem is yours, but yeh, everybody can say that :) Anyway, I think you know what I mean.
For vocal songs, the voice itself may be a way to kinda get a warm feeling for original, when voices are constantly the same form post to post, and maybe adding some marker to recent recording, like for openmic they ask to state the week number and openmic.
For electronic productions without vocals, it becomes really really hard though.
Not sure if a chin allows matching identities :)
Just curious. If someone shows their face in a video, they could just post a picture to match it. Both could be stolen from another source. It seems to me that the only way to be sure about someones work is to do a thorough search online. Thoughts? Sorry to take all of your time.
And yes, I agree, I think the vocals, demeanor, consistent style, body motions, playing technique, etc will start to validate my work over time. Especially since I plan to enter openmic each week, which as you say, has the required spoken words at the beginning of each video to validate that the video was made specifically for steemit openmic.
Image search is quickly done, We have tools like Google image search. Not 100% of course, but will detect quite a lot.
Openmic will help.
For the curators on this platform, anything that requires more than a couple of minutes work, will not be done, I actually have to let a lot of track postings go unresearched and not voted because it takes too much time to figure out if everything is solid. Can you imagine, already today we have 100+ maybe even 200+ new tracks posted and shared, and when I need to check all these, it takes me a day to do so. Plus, I have no instant view on what I already checked in Steemit, so next time I have to redo it again. Of ourse some users I remember, but many I dont since I see so many. The whole UI is not build to handle all of this in a good way, while also DTube and DSound dont even have a TOS stating that illegal uploads are not allowed. They also dont do any ID check. Since ID checks could be done by some independent verification company keeping your identity secret, but do a check based on eg you ID card, driving license. A common method by car rental companies and even the crypto exchanges when you want to transfer larger amount of funds to some other wallet, or to fiat.
Excellent post and I enjoyed some extra insight that dealt with more personal cases in the comments, very useful read.
However, here is the thing that I still struggle with. In short, I post "track of the day" type of the posts on my account, that feature artists' music I find on Soundcloud as part of my crate digging for my DJ series for Mixcloud. The type of music I look for is lesser known artists because my main goal with the series is to highlight up and coming artists, not play top 100 of Beatport. So I am hoping that with time and with account growth (that I have to put a lot of my own time into), I will provide exposure to young artists and promote their music. Now the possibility of rewards part is obviously where it becomes a grey area, and what I have been trying to do is reach out to each artist I feature on my blog and offer them the share of the possible reward if they join steemit. Now that in itself immediately sounds like a scam when it deals with money and joining a platform they are not aware of, so I need to find a good approach to ease them into the whole concept.
So, without getting too wordy, whats your guys' opinion on curation blogs? I spend my time finding this new music, I also review the tracks I feature on my blog, I do not represent it as my music, but as a music I find from curation on each post? Thoughts, ideas, on how to make it great for everyone involved? :)
I personally would not offer the artist a cut from what you earn promoting their music, but the other way around; When they come to steemit, you take a cut from what they earn! That is how it should work IMHO. Well, best way is maybe just try to get them to Steemit and whatever they earn, they keep. So, selling the idea of Steemit to someone, is a mix of things: They must like blogging, they can use Steemit for various purposes, to promote their own work, ideas and whatsoever, what they do on Facebook they can also do on Steemit. Steemit can just be another social media channel they operate. When they don't like to handle social media, well, their bad, they will not come to Steemit.
No issues to feature someone else work, it is curating as so may websites do. I suggest to add some good writing to the music you feature, objective review, your personal opinions, maybe some links to there social media and all. I personally like the personal opinions and stories around music posts, so when I see msuic post with generic stuff about the artists/band, I get bored and skip them for reading. To many other places on the Internet where you can find that. But not so many places where you can read personal stories around music.
Wow, that is a very illuminating point of view, I guess from my perspective it is their work and it's the fact that I earn something from it that might ruffle their feathers. But I am literally was thinking the same thing as you outlined, that it's not quite simple as that - it takes time and effort for me to build the following around my account, and if it becomes a good place for people to look for music - then it is also a highly targeted demographic listening to these artist's tracks, they get exposure and my "stamp of approval". I dont wanna repeat myself, but thank you for making me feel easier about the whole situation, as I was having conflicted feelings about something that was coming from very good intentions, imho. Really appreciate you taking time to respond, thank you, @edje!
You're Welcome :)
Really? People are ripping off other people’s music?? That’s low. I recently covered Gwen steffanies “what you waiting for”. https://dsound.audio/#/@thomasrobertgent/what-you-waiting-for . but clearly labeled it was a cover/remix I hope I’m not labeled as ripping off any one.
Yeah someone actually downloaded one of my OpenMic Posts and resubmitted it as their own in the competition, I was flattered but also wtf, like you could ever get away with that. I only found out because one of the judges @passion-ground spotted it.
That’s pretty low for some one to do that. I’m glad the judges picked up on in.
Someone seriously did that? That's disgusting. Wow.
Cover songs are fine, they are not being offered for sale - if they were you would need to go through licensing etc. You can play cover songs in a pub because they have a blanket licence - but you have forever been able to post transformative works anywhere - regardless of legality, don't have to think twice about posting a cover on youtube, soundcloud or any other website for competitions (imagine open mic if it was illegal to perform other people's music lol) if you performed it. Using samples from the original song or the original song itself without permission is where the trouble occurs and that needs to be policed seriously. I mean, what's stopping someone from re-uploading anyone's music? Nothing and that will be a problem one day imo.
Very true
Yep, in the world of music and Internet, ripping, copy/pasting, stealing is a well known phenomenon!
Wrt your post you linked above; To my personal taste you gave to little information. You mention that you did something with a cover, and used a tag suggesting it is a remix.
Added to that: when using copyright material of another artist, you have to get their consent under the law of most countries on our planet. Just mentioning you used some artists work for remix, is not sufficient. Especially when you earn money with it, which you do when you get votes on Steemit/DSound or through other Steem enabled services.
Hmmm you got me feeling a little guilty... I thought it was quite obvious it was a cover. I had no I’ll intent
I have no reason not to believe you, but always keep in mind: one does not read your mind, and can only conclude based on information provided.
This was the description ...
published 6 days ago
my first attempt at a cover song. Gwen Steffani's what you waiting for heavy metal style. all recording was done in my shed/studio (quite the back yard operation)
Im not sure what else I could have done to make it clear this was a cover and not an original.
as a i am into music before you make a cover or remix you so need to get permission from the artist if not from the publisher to use of any songs i make beats so i know alilbit about that since from time to time will need use a sample if i were to use a sample i would need to get permission from the artist or the publisher like i said before.. just sharing my knowledge..
I read your description before I made the first comment to you.
Anyway, you state in your description that it is a cover; A cover means: you created your interpretation of someone else work, but created it all by you. I started listening to the track and I hear different instruments and a voice while you mention YOU recorded it, based on that I assume YOU as in only you, no other individuals since you didn't mention anything about that. Now, it doesn't really feel very legit at my end, when a single person plays different instruments and does the voice all at the same time. So, this gives for me a red flag, or at least an orange flag.
Also, you used two tags to the post, of which one of them is 'remix'. A remix means: you took some other material and created some new work from it. This conflicts with the statement in your description that it is a cover. Now, a in a previous comment in this chain of comments, I took the approach you take the original material of someone else, and added something to it, to make it a remix. With that in mind, I commented to you that when re-using some material of someone else, you need their permission to do so.
All in all, I still don't know what you created: A cover? A remix?
I think it is perfectly fair to say that a cover can be a remix of a song, for example you could make your own representation of the song, changing parts as you see fit your taste or style better, it isnt exactly a true cover, but more a remix of the original version with all parts rerecorded by you. I think both tags are appropriate, from a personal standpoint.
You are allowed to use every tag you want that is relevant to your post. I have nothing against you using remix. I simple pointing out to you, what I pointed out to you in other comments.
EDIT: sorry, I thought you were the guy I had the whole chat with. We dont know what the reality is what @thomasrobertgent actually did. Did he re-record everything? I cant believe so. Did he make a remix? Maybe. Did he use existing material from another artists? Maybe? That users is too vague and for me something to not vote for.
Thanks , I agree @armageddonparty
great info #edje
i will surely act upon your tips to improve my self here in this community
Thanks for everything
You're Welcome and wish a success with Steemit.