The Page One video service has really started to ramp up, and one of the things that we’re learning is how often people forget that video is an audiovisual medium. We get so wrapped up in planning for the video shoots themselves that we often forget to give ourselves enough time or energy to find the right soundtrack to accompany the visual elements. Given the complications of licensing from major music labels, we have a need for an easy, but still stimulating, solution when it comes to browsing song libraries and deciding upon music.

There’s no shortage of stories about resistance from the Music Industry™ to change. Since Metallica and the RIAA successfully killed Napster in 2001, there’s effectively been a war on the new age of readily available digital music. And with the rise of streaming video technology, sites like YouTube have become the latest battleground. Videos using copyrighted material are being systematically muted or removed. We’ve even noticed this with some of our earlier video work. Most recently, ASCAP won a licensing suit against Google to the tune of $1.6 million, and has started sending collection letters to website owners for embedding YouTube videos without properly licensed songs.

The problem with taking aim at your customers is that you end up shooting yourself in the foot. Especially when what you’re fighting against are the big forces of the modern Web: collaboration, interactivity, and social media. Backlash against giants such as Warner Music is becoming much more visible as users continue to fight for their right to usable, remixable content.

These responses are intended to protect copyright holders and official videos. But the term “music video” no longer applies to MTV-quality productions. Video art collages, karaoke jams, re-enactments, interpretive dance routines, and home videos by the artists themselves give the listener-viewer access to the songs they’re looking for with a feast of visual accompaniment.

The real take away here is that it is in the copyright holder’s best interest to allow greater use of their content. Something the major music industry stakeholders are refusing to acknowledge.

Creative Commons, Social Media, and Sharing

So what’s to be done? Enter Creative Commons, a nonprofit corporation bringing the rules of copyright into the 21^st century. How? By providing new types of licenses “to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.” This model provides more robust possibilities for licensing to create new opportunity for creative work. It also gives independent artists the ability to use the power of social media to create new modes of distribution. Now songs can be released directly to the public through Twitter, MySpace pages, blogs, and artist websites. All you have to do is find it.

There are some new online tools to simplify this search process. Aggregators like Hype Machine’s Twitter Music Chart are now emerging to unify the independent music mediasphere and assist in the search for the Next Big Thing™. The Free Music Archive, directed by legendary freeform radio station WFMU, goes a step further. Their highly interactive, highly legal audio library offers free music downloads through openly licensed content “inspired by Creative Commons and the open source software movement.”

Cure for the Common Video

By working with these tools, we’ve found that the end result is an increasingly accessible independent music industry with a wealth of possibility for collaboration. We can now engage directly with independent artists and labels to find new music to soundtrack our videos. It increases production values for us, provides bands with promotion, and gives both parties access to a larger audience. Which means more opportunities for cross-promotional outreach and interaction through social media channels.

It’s a win for everyone involved: our clients, the bands we like, and the new concept of digital media rights in a social media world. Be on the lookout for interesting new sounds paired up with interesting new corporate videos in the future. Look out for a short stop-motion project we’ll be doing in the coming weeks to really show our video service’s potential, using the music of Lucky Dragons or Cornelius, or maybe both. Stay tuned.