We are just finishing up the 4th post on TACKLING TIMELINE But I thought I would post something today too 🙂

MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC

 

As artists we LOVE the impact that music can have when our work is shown. It helps capture  feeling, a mood, or our art & style.

However there are a few things to consider when using  music on your website, or in your business.

 

Music on Websites – My opinion

When you go to my website you will notice I don’t have music playing. I have my own reasons for that.

My friend  Erin put it this way “ Imagine that you are out shopping for furniture, you approach this gorgeous store, open the door and in swoops a man swinging from a chandelier and serenading you at the top of his lungs” If you are anything like me you would get the heck out of there as fast as possible, and never go back. Smart lady huh?

The same can be said for website music. When a prospective client enters your website you don’t want them startled so much they want to get the heck out of there.

Many prospective clients are surfing possibly at work, or perhaps with a bambino sleeping nearby. Your website busting them for slacking off at work or waking a sleeping baby is probably not the first impression you want to leave them with.

We can’t control the volume on our clients computers, so instead of scaring my prospective clients I have chosen to not have it on my site altogether.

 

Licensing Music

It is super important to realize that music is under the same copyright laws & protection as the images we take. Just because you download and pay for a song on itunes, doesn’t give you the permission to use it on your website, blog or slideshows.

I recently read an article about a wedding photographer. He used a popular copyrighted piece of music on a slideshow for one of his clients.The video went viral. Someone saw it and brought it to the attention of the labels legal team. He expected to just get a cease & desist letter, but was in fact sued for over $150, 000 in damages for 1 song. It never went to court, but he was required to pay an undisclosed amount that looked like this $XX, XXX. That’s enough to level any small business.

If you choose to use music on your Website, Blog or in slideshows, I URGE you to use licensed pieces of work.  There are some amazing sites out there with Royalty Free music – this means that this music is typically licensed for a single fee & you pay no royalties.

 

Here are some awesome options:

SongFreedom.com – they have  artists in their library like Colbie Calait & Jason Mraz!

Music Bakery

Jewelbeat.com

Earcandy Digital

Triple Scoop Music

The Music Bed

 

Using music illegally isn’t a great professional business practice, I may be a little melodramatic, but to quote the guy that got sued ” You’re playing Russian Roulette with your business”

Maybe you will get sued, maybe you won’t.

What it comes down to is this; We don’t like it when others steal our work, we need to pay the same respect to the music industry, and the artists there too.

To get respect you need to give it.

much love!

Lisa