If your livelihood as a creator depends on YouTube, you are probably aware that it can all be taken away all too easily, thanks to the video giant’s copyright infringement system.
There have been many horror stories about YouTube blocking, demonetizing, or permanently removing videos – based not only on valid claims but on those filed by malicious parties, such as copyright trolls and even extortionists, making life miserable for creators on the Google-owned platform that is yet to put their interests first.
Also, even the definition of what is and isn’t a copyright violation under the DMCA remains murky enough to be open to interpretation and opinion, where big music labels and games publishers almost always come out on top, regardless of the merit of their claim.
Bart Proost, who is behind a new product, Strikefree Music came up with an idea that’s meant to provide creators with a way to generate original music that can be freely used in their content.
The service uses artificial intelligence to generate audio tracks each time a user loads the website’s page. The files can then be downloaded and used free of charge, except for a $1 one-time fee.
According to Proost, the only way to avoid any possibility of copyright infringement and debilitating three strikes on YouTube that put channels out of business is to use unique, royalty-free music, in this case, sounds created by an algorithm.
Last year, Proost tried to solve the creators’ problem with copyright strikes more traditionally, launching a service called No Lick Music. The site quickly became popular – but after a while, creators who used it started getting takedown notices on YouTube. It transpired that artists whose music was featured royalty and copyright-free would sometimes go on to sign with labels, who would then make copyright claims.
To completely minimize the danger of such a twist of events, Nostrike Music relies entirely on AI. Responding to one of the comments posted on the product’s page on the Product Hunt site, Proost explained that the downloadable music files are generated when the user loads the Strikefree Music page – “they didn’t exist a minute before that, and they will never exist again after you close the browser tab.”
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