Continuing the discussion from In the news: Audius Problems:
@brndnkng and I had a discussion with George Howard about a potential audio screening service. Meanwhile I’ve reached out to PEX. Definitely something for @catalog to consider in their analysis of third party services. Very important that we demonstrate due diligence in respect of traditional industry practices around intellectual property in phonograms (Masters) and compositions (Publishing).
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Interesting - but PEX isn’t intended for a streaming platform where we’re onboarding audio with metadata. If we’re uploading with full metadata, if all artists/labels are verified, we shouldn’t be having the issues PEX intends to solve. Plus ICE.
Please can you intro me to Kendria @richjensen - angus spoke to someone there but never updated the executive before leaving.
I believe PEX will check audio files for unlicensed samples and spoofed metadata. Perhaps a perennial concern if the community wishes to provide a platform for independent producers in sample-based music.
Re: Kendra I’ll put you in touch with Daniel Harris.
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Checking for unlicensed samples… minefield.
We really need to have a wider discussion of this with members - I don’t think we ever want resonate to become the takedown minefield that eg. soundcloud is.
A lot of that could be solved with proper ID verification checks before music is even accepted onto the platform. Some may not like it, but secure and private ID validation could be hugely valuable and it’s not something bandcamp or soundcloud or spotify do.
Interesting that bandcamp hasn’t had these problems, but a closer look at bandcamp and you’ll find people selling unlicensed mixes, albums, secret live recordings etc. Perhaps because they’re seen as an independent bastion of the music community that is FOR artists, rather than outsiders, or because most of that illegal material infringes indies rather than majors.
Spotify is clogged with illegally uploaded material and people posing to be artists, people uploading track as fake versions of popular songs/artists etc. as there’s no verification process for the artists, just the music, they aren’t looking for fakes and scammers, only copyright infringement but the scammer problem is huge.
but you’re right of course, and we’re unlikely to be able to make a deal with Merlin without such checks. There’s plenty of options to check out.
thanks rich!
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Yes. But this is the minefield we occupy. 
Totally agree this is a practical area of concern and guidance for @musicmaker-members.
From a risk mitigation level, as mentioned in the article and as advised by legal professionals, demonstration of due diligence, ie demonstrating a practical procedure of protecting rights-holders, puts the co-op in the strongest position for navigating these choppy waters…
… excuse me minefield. 
Personally I find it helpful to also put the historically situated concept of intellectual property under scrutiny and consider whether the co-op community can’t offer policy pathways legally and socially toward the re-emergence of a sustainable creative commons.
To me, that is/was part of the promise of the Verifiable Credentials research, the other part being privacy-identity related: how do we give maximum control over to how the humans represent themselves as members in the co-op’s affiliated online spaces?
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yeah bandcamp has tons of unlicensed covers of tin pan alley songs, jazz standards, that’s what i know from my world at least; and probably also many pop covers in the same boat
most of my fellow young canadian jazz musicians put out recordings on bandcamp because they don’t want to pay for a mechanical license to cover their ‘standards’
so even if it doesn’t have the same level of blatant stuff as other places, it’s a big problem there too and they’re not making any progress on it
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I’m very much interested in this discussion thought have no real experience with this complex end of the music ecosystem, so excuse me if I’m misunderstanding anything.
My first thought though - and this was because I was thinking about seeing if I could get an artist friend of mine to put his music on here who has some well known/respected covers in his repertoire - how difficult is it to implement e.g., licensed covers as the platform currently stands? Is it just our lack of e.g., ISRC codes or is there more to it?
At present, through the uploader process, it only allows 100% original music, no covers etc. How complex would it be to enable all the various licensed and legitimate use cases, irrespective of due-diligence on prospective infringement?
I know the above goes beyond e.g., ContentID and infringing content etc. but I personally feel that legitimate pathways for artists should be held up alongside any systems to monitor for the illegitimate.
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