Mix Removed from Soundcloud due to copyright infringment

Hi

First off, sorry if this is the wrong area of the forums to be posting this in, but wanted to get a bit of advice on posting mixes to soundcloud

This morning, I upload my mix for the Drum&Bass Arena Pioneer DJ Competition to Soundcloud, emailed them the link and all seemed fine. Gone on just now to post the link over here to get a bit of feedback and got a message saying my mix has been taken down due to copyright infringement. Now, this is the first time I've made a mix available in the public domain, (normally I just to a bit of DJing at house parties, mixes for car journeys etc) but I kinda assumed that there wouldn't be a problem with it seeing how many mixes there are on soundcloud and in the public domain in general. Might be worth noting, all tunes were legally obtained, couple from CDs but most downloaded off itunes.

I've read through the copyright pages and it seems to fall down on 'does the recording contain any music or excerpts from other copyright works'. Fair enough, but surely every DJ who plays out or uploads stuff on the internet hasn't sought out permission from every artists/record label to use their song in a mix?

There's an option to challenge the claim, so my question is really how best to go about doing this?

Thanks in advance for any help

I had a LOT of trouble with this a few mixes ago. Honestly its sort of a crapshoot. You could cut off (or fade in) the first ten to fifteen seconds of a mix to not trip the wire that makes Soundcloud think you've caused a copyright, and sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't. It appears that if Soundcloud's recognition software doesn't think you've basically taken a known tune and uploaded the full thing to your soundcloud account, they won't care. It does this by analyzing the spectrum and waveform of your mix, and if you've basically started your mix with a tune it knows with the same waveform and all, it assumes that the rest of your track is that first tune, just uploaded illegally as its not your own independent creation.

It's a very temperamental site and has been one of the main reasons I've begun uploading my mixes elsewhere, since the challenging of the claims is essentially worthless. I once tried to contest the same mix about five times with proof, even, that the tunes in question have been legally purchased. They don't care.

Perhaps your BEST option is to find (or make) some sort of intro with a text-to-speech program or something of the sort to lay over the intro to your mix as a watermark. Similarly, if you can overlay practically any sound over the initial tune as a way of masking and distorting the waveform enough from what it recognizes, it shouldn't trip the software.

Hope that helps!

I had a similar problem.

Re-uploaded and disabled downloads and now ok.

Also, ive seen on a few occassions people reporting mixes that are entries for competitions as infringing copyright and getting them removed. Less competition.

Thanks Very useful to know a bit about how they pick up 'illegal' uploads. Seems incredibly dumb not to take a quick look at the length of the tune, cause that would be a fairly big giveaway that its not just someone else's tune being uploaded.

Based on what you've said, I'm surprised my mix got picked up though. The intro was a strings segment taken from a song by the band Morning Benders, but had been echoed ever so slightly and had a vinyl scratch sample looped over the top to give it a old fashioned kinda sound, so didn't really bare much resemblance to the original, certainly not in terms of waveform. I'll try your idea of adding a text-to-speech snippet or something as a water mark at the beginning.

Forau said:

I had a similar problem.

Re-uploaded and disabled downloads and now ok.

Also, ive seen on a few occassions people reporting mixes that are entries for competitions as infringing copyright and getting them removed. Less competition.

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Wow, surprised people would stoop so low. These comp's are only a bit of fun. Hope that hasn't happened in this case.

Yeah, might removed the download too. Shame to do so from a quality point of view, but best just be on the safe side.

Doesn't matter how long the tune is P_J if it isn't yours then you're infringing copyright. Read your 'end user agreement' if you buy from Juno etc. They should have told you which tune it was and who own's the copyright though.


It's always been the first tune for me. I'd start another account and upload your intro tune to test the water.


'Forau' it picks when initialising (waveform going orange) so i don't know how you got away with it second time.

why did pioneer/dnba or whoever arranged this competition told people to upload their mixes to soundcloud if it isn't meant for dj mixes? they should've arranged a proper platform themselves so people actually can submit their mixes. or used mixcloud.

imo mixcloud is much better, yeah you can't browse trough a track as fast, but at least you can upload your stuff without any problems + all of your mixes stay there + you don't run out of time.

I've had a pro subscription at Soundcloud for nearly two years now. At the moment I've got something like twenty mixes uploaded and I've never ever had a single warning or complaint due to infringment. My theory is that paying subscribers "get away with it" while free subs don't.

blumarten said:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152433197188211

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Easy fix. Their copyright mechanism only scans the first part of the track, so if you make a custom intro of say 15-20 seconds it will most likely not get flagged.

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thismeanswar said:

My theory is that paying subscribers "get away with it" while free subs don't.

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That's my hunch as well. This is semi-off-topic but is it just me that is pissed of that even pro users only get a 128kbps stream? Am I the only one who thinks this is fucking insane?

thismeanswar said:

I've had a pro subscription at Soundcloud for nearly two years now. At the moment I've got something like twenty mixes uploaded and I've never ever had a single warning or complaint due to infringment. My theory is that paying subscribers "get away with it" while free subs don't.

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No this doesn't work, ive had a pro account for a year and a half now and I still got stuff taken down, although in my case it was because I used a film score as an intro tune.

Sicx said:

No this doesn't work, ive had a pro account for a year and a half now and I still got stuff taken down, although in my case it was because I used a film score as an intro tune.

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Well, there you have it. Movie scores are also copyrighted. I have used soundcloud for three years now and uploaded exactly 60 mixes. Only five or six of these have been blocked, but upon adding an intro they all slipped through.