Hello, dear reader, I hope you’re doing well. While I’m seeing family this post should satisfy your craving for Heart and Business. Note I’m not paid or sponsored for any of what I’m writing here. I’m giving you my opinions and research. I’ll focus on YouTube and some of the things I’ve learned about making online videos. I’ll include tips on finding royalty-free music, images, and figuring out if you can legally monetize your video.
It turns out a lot of free music is out there. In fact YouTube has its own Audio Library. This Audio Library is found in the Creator Studio section of your YouTube account. The music featured includes creators who may require attribution. This means if you use their music you must include notes in your video description. They usually have a premade attribution paragraph ready for you to copy.
This is good news for anyone who can’t make the time to develop their own music, or afford to hire a songwriter. The library also includes sound effects like glass breaking. You can look online for more music. Just look out if you’re trying to avoid paying a subscription. The following web pages are good examples of what you can expect from some of these sites: http://www.bensound.com/licensing shows how a variety of music licenses are present on the same site, and http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/faq.html does a good job of explaining how to attribute music to the composer.
Images are similar. You can find them at places like http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/faq.html and sites like http://www.imagesource.com/about/licensing can explain more about the different types of image licenses you can get.
YouTube videos can require a lot of different media in order to be entertaining, vibrant, and attractive. The most important part of any video is the information and product being displayed. If you’re showing off something like a video game you are technically exhibiting video, music, and images from a company’s product which most likely took years to build. There’s a reason game companies are a bit touchy about it. However, I think the success of YouTube gamers and Twitch streamers showcase the power of having gamers advertise your product for you. Companies like Blizzard have policy pages to inform you of their stance on making videos using their content. Blizzard’s video policy is at http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/videopolicy.html, and another helpful page I’ve found is http://letsplaylist.wikia.com/wiki/%22Let's_Play%22-friendly_developers_Wiki. I would still strongly recommend emailing the company just to cover any other reasons YouTube could have to pull your video by having a written copy of a company’s affirmation to make videos. They can clarify the legal mumbo-jumbo, and you can double check their video policy without crawling through the caverns of a website. It also starts a relationship between you and the company, shows you’re respectful, and may lead to future sponsorship.
Hopefully this is a good start for other new creators reading this blog. You can show it to people who have no concept of how much energy goes into legal research. Please comment on the site or email me if you want any more info or have any questions about making YouTube videos. There are several other things I’m busy researching, and I hope to have the Lunar Nebula LLC Gaming channel up sometime in August. I’ve gotten the OK from Aspyr Media through their Facebook account. A Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic play through is now in the works. Have a good day, dear reader!
It turns out a lot of free music is out there. In fact YouTube has its own Audio Library. This Audio Library is found in the Creator Studio section of your YouTube account. The music featured includes creators who may require attribution. This means if you use their music you must include notes in your video description. They usually have a premade attribution paragraph ready for you to copy.
This is good news for anyone who can’t make the time to develop their own music, or afford to hire a songwriter. The library also includes sound effects like glass breaking. You can look online for more music. Just look out if you’re trying to avoid paying a subscription. The following web pages are good examples of what you can expect from some of these sites: http://www.bensound.com/licensing shows how a variety of music licenses are present on the same site, and http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/faq.html does a good job of explaining how to attribute music to the composer.
Images are similar. You can find them at places like http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/faq.html and sites like http://www.imagesource.com/about/licensing can explain more about the different types of image licenses you can get.
YouTube videos can require a lot of different media in order to be entertaining, vibrant, and attractive. The most important part of any video is the information and product being displayed. If you’re showing off something like a video game you are technically exhibiting video, music, and images from a company’s product which most likely took years to build. There’s a reason game companies are a bit touchy about it. However, I think the success of YouTube gamers and Twitch streamers showcase the power of having gamers advertise your product for you. Companies like Blizzard have policy pages to inform you of their stance on making videos using their content. Blizzard’s video policy is at http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/videopolicy.html, and another helpful page I’ve found is http://letsplaylist.wikia.com/wiki/%22Let's_Play%22-friendly_developers_Wiki. I would still strongly recommend emailing the company just to cover any other reasons YouTube could have to pull your video by having a written copy of a company’s affirmation to make videos. They can clarify the legal mumbo-jumbo, and you can double check their video policy without crawling through the caverns of a website. It also starts a relationship between you and the company, shows you’re respectful, and may lead to future sponsorship.
Hopefully this is a good start for other new creators reading this blog. You can show it to people who have no concept of how much energy goes into legal research. Please comment on the site or email me if you want any more info or have any questions about making YouTube videos. There are several other things I’m busy researching, and I hope to have the Lunar Nebula LLC Gaming channel up sometime in August. I’ve gotten the OK from Aspyr Media through their Facebook account. A Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic play through is now in the works. Have a good day, dear reader!