Why You should not use Epidemic Sound

Summary: Don’t use Epidemic Sound if you want your content shared as widly as possible, otherwise they will annoy content users with copyright claims – even if you paid them already.

We recently published a video on the growing global movement, raising awareness about our climate emergency, the climate crisis.

However, after the video past the 2,000 views mark someone affiliated with Epidemic Sound manually filed a copyright claim for six seconds of video content, for sound recordings from ‘The Podium – Josef Falkensköld’.

So we disputed this claim, citing fair-use doctrines, the particular segment is part of a We Don’t Have Time trailer showing Friday’s for Future climate activists demonstrating in the streets.

Essentially we used content which had already been paid for. Also there was no way we could have known this, not even YouTube’s own copyright system took this one up.

The video was free to watch, was not monetized, yet after our dispute Olof from Epidemic Sound was quick to reject our dispute, he wrote us an email.

Olof from Epidemic Music wrote to Climate State: Thanks for using our music in your YouTube channel Climate State! However, you need to get a licence or a subscription with us if you want to monetise your videos on YouTube.

No Olof, the video was NOT monetized, and it was fair-use!

We could have filed another dispute, disputing his dispute, on fair-use grounds, educational, free content, only six seconds of usage, and content was already paid for, but instead we just deleted the video, and today I uploaded a new version.

Now, I write this blog here to remind people, content creators, people with the aim for outreach – be more careful when selecting music and sounds, because as outlined it can culminate in considerable delay, extra work, or extra fees down the road.

What others say about Epidemic Sound

Oscar Höglund, CEO of Epidemic Sound, invited me to a concert, an opportunity to explain him again his own company’s license and terms (2020) https://medium.com/@mr_standalone/oscar-höglund-ceo-of-epidemic-sound-invited-me-to-a-concert-an-opportunity-to-explain-him-again-3cc5d1d965cc

Bonemane: Same thing happened to me. They are freaking claiming the menu music! The scumbags then took my info and premade an account for me on their website without my permission. People need to be aware of this.

Reddit: I posted a video, with music from epidemic sound, I paid for the music, and credited them, yet they still copyrighted me, when I filed a dispute with proof of payment, they ignored it!

MrBeast & PewDiePie: Even my new video just got claimed and we only used epidemic sounds.’

Climate State recommends for Sound & Music services

• EPIC STOCK MEDIA http://epicstockmedia.com
• BOOM Library https://www.boomlibrary.com
• SOUND MORPH https://www.soundmorph.com
• TRAILER MUSIC ACADEMY https://trailermusicacademy.com
• Vlog No Copyright Music https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEickjZj99-JJIU8_IJ7J-Q