If you are a blogger, journalist, author, marketer, influencer, or any individual gifted in online storytelling, you might have to incorporate music in your work at a given time—which is an easy task. What’s challenging, though, is searching for its owners and procuring the rights to use it.
Researching such details may sound like a daunting task. However, music platforms such as Jaxsta make finding the credit information you need so much easier.
Let’s take a closer look at the importance of adding music credits to your work.
- Brand Confidence
Not adding the proper music credit in your work can result in legal action, which can shake up your brand. Information is easily shared and accessed online, and you might be surprised that your brand is the topic of discussion on a particular day because of the controversy surrounding the legality of the music you used. If you don’t give credit where it’s due, your clients, customers, followers, viewers, or listeners might cause them to drop support for you and go to your competition instead.
Thus, adding credit to your work can avoid compromising your brand by associating with such negative legal woes. Remember that your clientele enjoys associating with brands that practice transparency and authenticity, and it’s good for them to see you have those qualities, too.
- Ethical Standing
Any business entity or creative hub must be anchored in ethics. Taking work that belongs to another and including it in yours without licensing approval is unethical. The fact that your work is followed by many means you might also compromise any opportunities to work with potential partners or employers. These are some of the factors that people can research, analyse, and consider when deciding whether to work with you or not. So, it’s best to study the song’s licensing deals and parameters, so you always stay on the side of safety—and appear ethical in the process.
- Cross-promotion Of Talent
As part of the creative industries, you would always appreciate it when your work is publicised to reach new audiences who will appreciate the creativity. Thus, you’re doing the creative world a favor by adding music credits to your work, as you will be promoting the creative product of a fellow content creator. The information provided in the credits can then be used by your audience to track down this content creator and discover more of their works.
Different creatives publicise and market their works in various ways. If the musician you featured in your work will link back to your website or social media account, then you will also receive exposure from their networks as they are being exposed to yours. Thus, by promoting the artists’ work, you are, in turn, promoting your own.
- Avoid False Claims
The internet is full of different audiences with various intentions. If you don’t add the proper music credits you used in your work, you might come across someone making a false claim to that composition. This action could lead to false accusations about you having stolen from the ‘claiming artist’ and can quickly lead to a smear campaign. And in the age of the internet, the adage saying ‘negative publicity is still publicity’ doesn’t hold water anymore, in the age of the so-called ‘cancel culture.’ Thus, safely adding music credit means you communicated with the musician and obtained their permission to use their composition. Therefore, this security bans any other person from claiming work that isn’t theirs.
- Catching Other Artists’ Attention
It’s vital to research the copyright owners of the music you intend to use in your work so that you can ask for permission and properly add their music to your work if their licensing deals allow for its usage. And, as mentioned, your work could gain exposure from their network, and another artist could see what you did.
It’s not out of the norm that artists collaborate. Depending on how you included the music in your work, you might catch another artist’s attention, which can open doors to new opportunities. If they see that you included music credits in your work, they can even boost your work and ask for collaborations so you could do the same with their music, too. Now that’s the kind of attention that grows your creative channels.
Conclusion
Think of the hours you put in to produce the pieces of work that you do. Regardless of the trade, creating your valuable pieces takes commitment, dedication, and sacrifice. Now imagine that work being used by another creative person without providing any credit to your work. You would probably feel infuriated that the hard and long hours you put in are not being recognised. It’s worse if your work is freely distributed while promoting another’s work.
You could opt to take legal action since it’s your right as the intellectual property owner. So, it’s the same if you don’t research the legalities of a song you intend to use. Thus, be responsible and secure the permission and licensing rights of the song you want to use, then make sure that you add the proper music credits to your work.
