A Question About iTunes and Alonetone and 'Other' places...

[henwrench]

   When I look at whose been listening to my shit on alonetone, many people are listening to it via iTunes. I obviously have no problem with this. I personally don't use iTunes and the extent of my knowledge about it is extremely limited. But when I've searched iTunes for either 'alonetone' or 'henwrench', nothing comes back. So, like,  .

          It's interesting where your stuff can turn up if you search around...I've found my videos on sites that are not YouTube and I've found my songs on upload sites I've never heard of or 'used'. Like I said, it doesn't bother me in the slightest as the stuff is out there for all to giggle at, but I just wonder how my shit turns up in/on the other 'platforms'....

          Just, like, putting it out there....

                                                               henwrench

[Greeny]

There's some seriously weird shit that goes on out there. Looks like a lot of small sites just rip content off the big boys in the hope of channeling some advertising click revenue through their portal. Maybe the itunes thing is just about what people are playing the music through though. 

This is a good example. WTF?!

http://www.allthingsnow.com/day/music/shared/13027559/-Harry-Hill-where-do-we-go-from-here-by-jemima-s-kite-by-james-higgins-Music-Video-on-MUZU-TV

I won't post some of the links as I think they're virused up to the eyeballs.

There are some right unscrupulous bastards out there.

[Hilary]

Yep - I'm listed as a 'performer' (comedy btw I missed my chance as the fat pole dancer on BGT) on some promoters websites that I have never performed for. They've just ripped the information off somewhere else and got it wrong! Once you try and get an online presence it seems you're fair game and there's not much you can do about it

[64Guitars]

There are lots of content aggregators. Instead of creating their own content, they collect content from other popular sites and add it to their own. YouTube videos are especially popular with content aggregators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_aggregator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Store#Aggregators


iTunes pays royalties on the songs they sell. I'd hate to think that some scoundrel, be they an individual or an unscrupulous content aggregator, is making money off your work.

Alonetone does have a connection with iTunes, but I think you have to actually submit your songs. I would hope that other alonetone members can't submit your songs and that they're not automatically submitted by alonetone.

http://alonetone.com/about/itunes

If you have the iTunes media player installed on your computer, I believe the following link will take you to the iTunes alonetone page. But I think it only works in the player software, not in your web browser.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/alonetone/id275623958

I think Greeny's probably right that people are just playing your songs using the iTunes player but the songs aren't actually for sale on iTunes.

[Flash Harry]

Bastards.

[Oldrottenhead]

when you upload a song at alonetone in amongst all the bumf and print it sez this.

By uploading a mp3 file to alonetone.com, you grant alonetone.com the non-exclusive right to distribute
the music in any way we see fit without your further permission or notification.

That means that you music will likely show up on alonetone.com, facebook, itunes, and other websites.

As the rights are non-exclusive, you keep your rights as a copyright holder. You can of course sell it or distribute it elsewhere - you own it!

[T.C. Elliott]

That sounds awful, but before anyone starts hammering on alonetone just realize most sharing sites have something similar to that policy.

I immediately thought of the itunes player but that wouldn't necessarily give itune play counts would it?

[Hilary]

When you join Alonetone there is a tick option box for your songs to automatically be loaded onto iTunes in the form of a podcast (Vaisvil does it). They don't sell the songs, they are free to listen to. I didn't tick mine.

The only way to protect your songs is not to have them in a downloadable format. Guests can come on Songcrafters and download all the songs directly uploaded to the player here and basically do what they like with them. Youtube vids can be ripped etc etc.

Soundcloud, you can disable the download option but they only let you have so many songs on your account before you have to start paying or you end up with different accounts.

[Hilary]

Btw - if you send someone a song directly and their default player is iTunes, when they listen to it, it will obviously play in iTunes.

[Hilary]

I've just checked your name on the iTunes store and the following came up as podcasts, via Alonetone

Milk Sweet (live) with Henwrench (Tharek Ali Mokbul)
Two of us (featuring Henwrench) (Cuthbert)

So even if you didn't tick the iTunes box - some of the people you have collaborated with have.