Web Video By Megan O'Neill on June 28, 2010 3:30 PM

Rumblefish To Help YouTubers Avoid Copyright Infringement With New Friendly Music Service

YouTubers who are tired of having their videos blocked or the soundtracks removed because of music copyright violations can breathe easy after tomorrow, when Rumblefish launches their new Friendly Music service. Friendly Music will allow users to buy licenses to copyrighted music for $1.99 a song so that they can use them in their YouTube videos without worrying about having their video removed from the site.

Rumblefish’s Friendly Music site launches officially tomorrow, June 29, and should alleviate a lot of the frustration that YouTube content creators face when trying to find the perfect legal song to use as their video soundtrack. The site will offer over 35,000 songs in their catalog. None of the songs come from the four major mainstream labels at first, but the company has said it will be trying to work out deals with big name artists in the future.

Paul Anthony, chief executive of Rumblefish, told Joseph Plambeck of the New York Times, “A lot of the users of YouTube are the everyday filmmakers, and they don’t have an outlet like this. We’re excited about this being a connection point, the first of many steps to make music really easy to use in video.” Anthony also said that the songs on the site have been hand selected and include those that work best for film and video projects. Users can search for songs according to mood or genre.

It isn’t only amateurs that are having issues with copyright on YouTube. Just last week, YouTube user Mystery Guitar Man posted a video about a recent experience he had with copyright on YouTube. He asked an artist for permission to use her song and she agreed. However, once the video was created and posted to YouTube the record label had it taken down. Friendly Music should be a great step forward in preventing incidents like this for YouTube users. It is important to note that the new service can be used for noncommercial purposes only, so if you are making a video to sell a product or service you will need a different kind of license.

The video below explains a little bit about Rumblefish’s Friendly Music service. Check it out and let us know what you think. Would you be willing to pay $1.99 to insure that your video won’t be taken down from YouTube due to copyright violations?