Music, Sound Effects, Tech News, and More — The AudioMicro Blog

The folks over at TorrentFreak have been reporting on a new trend in iPhone hacking that’s on track to gain significant attention in 2009. When the earth-shattering mobile phone hit the shelves nearly two years ago, the process of jailbreaking was one of the only widely renowned ways techies and hackers alike could play around with Apple’s not-so-transparent technology. Now Crackulous, a piece of code that removes copy protection in applications, has been made available to the public.

The term “hacking” bears negative connotations to those that don’t understand technology, and the developers of Crackulous have a highly proletarian view on the whole issue. Quite simply, using Crackulous would allow users to share applications they’ve downloaded through Apple, all while contributing to new software developments via open source coding. This would lead to various advancements in the scheme of using the iPhone to its full potential.

Although code junkies were only recently given the opportunity to experiment with Crackulous, software developers concerned about the success of their IP have since become hot on their trail. Ripdev, the newest threat to software pirates, is the latest application of anti-DRM testing systems that has already undergone Apple’s software approval process. TorrentFreak quotes the Ripdev representatives, noting that “the Kali system is a server-side service which can take any App Store application and place it inside another protection wrapper which, Ripdev claims, will prevent it from being pirated.” While the technical side of the issue is sure to be far more complicated, the Ripdev team is essentially challenging hackers to break through an extra barrier of protection, all for a 1%-%5 cut of developer’s revenue depending on price. While this is nothing new to the code-crackers of the tech world, it is among the first steps towards the oft-told battle of software copyright protection in the digital age.

Posted in: Apple, DRM, piracy, software

Here is a YouTube video we randomly pulled today called “scacchi clay stop motion – chess clay stop motion”.  This video has close to 250,000 views on YouTube, undoubtedly earning rev share money for it’s creator.   It’s a great example of how the music makes the video (or phrased a better way, the music is at least 50% of the entertainment value of this video or more).  Wonder if they legally licensed this track?  Likely so as it came from the YouTube music libary that allows you to overlay certain public domain tracks.  The popularity of videos like this one serve as a powerful reminder of the entertainment value of music when pared with a visual production and the need for a viable outlet for appropriately securing sync licenses for consumer generated videos such as those on YouTube.  

Posted in: AudioMicro, license music, opensource, YouTube, YouTube music

When it comes to production music to be synced with a visual medium, one of the most lucrative outlets is the sports show theme song. Take ESPN’s Monday Night Football, for example. This theme was written on a buyot basis by composers for the Associate Production Music (APM) library, owned by EMI, a British record label giant. This theme is played over and over again for trailers, commercials, and of course during live broadcast performances of the NFL game throughout the 17 week season. The checks just come and come and if you can land a theme like Monday Night Football, you can pretty much consider yourself set for life. Another popular sports theme is the ESPN college football gameday theme, generating recurring royalties for the publisher and composer for each broadcast performance. Two important items to notice are that both of these themes are heavy on the trumpet and ths strings, and you should use these as a guide to composing you own sports related theme, building your personal library one theme at a time, with focussed, marketable efforts. After sports themes, composing holiday jingles is another great niche, always in demand at least a few times every year.

Posted in: sports shows. sports theme songs

Let’s start out by giving credit where credit is due. We’re neither professional writers nor “news breakers” over here at AudioMicro and we reach out to other outlets from time to time for stories. We first read about this “Wallmark DRM-Free Store-y” on TechCrunch.com, a fabulous tech news site that AudioMicro predicts will be acquired within the next 2 years by CBS Interactive or FOX Interactive for $50 million plus. Word on the street is that TechCrunch’s revenues aren’t huge (less than $5 million and we have no idea if that’s accurate or not) but if they can venture more into the tech trade show business on the side, they can get the top line to rise and thereby a better valuation. We certainly hope so.

So anyway, we learned that Wallmart has ditched it’s DRM music store in favor or a DRM Free music store. Now that’s a step in the right direction. The DRM model seems to be dying but Apple is able to hold onto it as they have a stranglehold on the personal use market. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see outlets like WallMart licensing music. Wallmart.com is one of the top 25 most trafficked websites in the world. The site gets over 27 million monthly unique visitors and channeling that traffic to a digital goods store make a lot of business sense.

From time to time, from a few select parties, AudioMicro has been criticized for it’s pricing model. How can you sell a sync license for $1 a minute for general use when other outlets charge $20 a track? Please explain.

The answer comes down to fundamentals of retail pricing. Why does “The Gap” sell clothing made at the same factory, with the same material for $250 at Banana Republic and $10 at Old Navy? Because certain consumers just don’t shop at Banana Republic because they just want a simple T-shirt and not the designer version with the designer price tag. It all comes down to consumer purchasing behavior. We believe strongly that the AudioMicro material is used primarily in online creative audio-visual projects and that they purchasers of the designer material are not turning to AudioMicro to place work on network television.

We closely monitor the sales transactions coming through today they are PayPal receipts from “ABC[at]GMAIL.com” and “ABC[at]HOTMAIL.com” and not George.Lucas[at]LucasFilm.com. Simply put, what we mean is that the high end of the commercial music licensing market is not going anywhere and the traditional production libraries and publishers should view this platform as a positive opportunity. Every micro stock music sale is not a lost customer for a traditional library. We are not making light of the music licensing industry by simply undercutting the larger, established libraries. What we are doing is getting exposure for unknown, unsigned artists by placing their work in creative audiovisual projects that are produced by every day consumers on shoestring budgets.

If consumers do not have an outlet where they can get easy access to affordable, pre-cleared music for creative projects, there are two major implications:

1. the customer will simply not use music for their projects,

2. they will make unauthorized use of the content that they have purchased (or illegally downloaded) for personal use

Micro stock music opens up commercial music licensing to the masses and offers an affordable, easy solution for licensing music for use in audio-visual media. There are approximately 10 videos uploaded to YouTube every second. Everyone with a cell phone is a producer. With so much video content circulating the web today, it’s only natural that a platform for clearing and licensing music, royalty free sound effects, and production elements to accompany these videos (and any video project, not just YouTube) will emerge and thrive.

Posted in: freesoundeffects, opensource, royalty free music, soundeffects, stockmusic, TechCrunch, WallMark, YouTube