As you may know, I'm (in a small team) manually curating music related posts to which we give undervalued posts an extra boost. With todays Steem and SBD values, we give out up to 60$ with a single vote.
A type of post we consider for upvote is original music.
In this post you'll read about:
- Trend: Increase of Illegal Music uploads and Identity Theft
- Suggestions how to provide Evidence You are You and Your uploads are Yours
Trend: Illegal Music Uploads & ID Theft
Lately I noticed more and more music uploads to DTube, DSound and similar services; Which is nice to see!
However, I also noticed more and more illegal uploads, ie ripped music from some internet source and uploaded to the Steem blockchain through eg DTube/DSound without the user having the rights to the music.
In addition, I see more and more accounts that maybe based on stolen identity.
Recently I came across an account claiming to be Robert Hood! Well, this artist I know pretty well (not personal, but I know who he is, I know his music, I know how he uses social media)! And I can tell you, this user claiming to be Robert Hood and started uploading and sharing music by Robert Hood, is NOT Robert Hood! Although I still cannot be 100% positive about it, I'm for 99,9% for sure that my conclusion is the right one. For instance, nothing was provided as evidence that this user is Robert Hood. Images used in posts are all available at the usual internet sources. The username is not the username Robert Hood uses at all his other internet channels. No personal content is shared etc etc etc. And I never ever got a reply on my question I asked this user to provide some kind of evidence that this user is indeed Robert Hood.
Suggestions How to Provide Evidence
For me (us) to determine if your track(s) you share are yours - whether that be a YouTube/Soundcloud share, or an upload to DTube/DSound - or at least you have the rights to share/upload (maybe you are a label owner and have an agreement with your artist to share his/her work) I MUST see some kind of evidence.
I therefore request anybody who share/upload their own work to provide such evidence. This can be done in various ways, but what will help for sure:
- Provide links to your Soundcloud/YouTube/Website/Facebook and other external sources in eg your Steemit Profile, and/or Introduction post, and/or even better, in each post you make;
- Use same name on Steemit as you use in your external resources;
- Show recent uploads to your external channels, matching your shares/uploads here at Steemit/DTube/DSound;
- Post selfies here at Steemit/DTube/DSound that you also use at external sources, or at least something that I can match faces with;
- Post videos with you in it including a hint that it is a very recent recording by naming eg Steemit, Date, or like the OpenMic uploads are done refering to a week number.
When following above rules, this may not give 100% evidence, but I would get a warm feeling (most of the time at least) about you being who you say you are and the music is yours. Having such warm feeling, your posts made it to the pool of post that I consider for a vote.
Of course, you don't have to follow the rules given, that is entirely up to you! You may not be interested in some additional votes and post rewards :) Note that when I'm not having a positive feeling about you being genuine and/or you don't own the rights to the music, I'll not hand out any vote. That's all :)