New Song-Tracking Software Could Be Great For Artists But Cause Headaches For YouTube Users

Musicians should get what they deserve for their work.

It's an issue we've been covering for the past few months.

Some new software from music licensing firm Audiosocket could help make it easier for them to get credit when their music gets streamed on places like YouTube.

But it could also increase enforcement against users who upload unlicensed songs.

The software is called LicenseID.

It serves as a kind of dog-tag for the track: once it's embedded, it lets rights-holders know their song has been used, and also whether the person using the track has the rights to do so.

YouTube's current system for identifying tracks, called ContentID, only lets the rights-holder know their song has been played.

It does not tell them whether the user had legal authority to do so. It only matches sounds against a vast database of audio.

As a result, everyone from major companies to a guy who had birds singing in the background of his post have been receiving erroneous take down notices, Audiosocket President and Co-Founder Jenn Miller told us.

LicenseID fixes that problem.

Miller is also pitching the software as a way to ease the burden on Google (which owns YouTube) of policing copyright.

But Miller admits it could also lead to even more rigorous enforcement of copyright claims.

If you legally bought a song on iTunes, but don't have the right to use it as a soundtrack to your music video, you're probably going to get dinged.

"Where copyrights exist, this will help prevent infringing uses," she said. "How people deal with that ... we provide visibility."

Audiosocket plans to announce their first music catalogue partner in the coming weeks.