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Rumblefish 'Friendly Music' Legally Adds Music to YouTube Vids -- For a Price

by Amar Toor on June 28, 2010 at 06:05 PM

friendly music logo
To most of us, the notion of "paying for music" sounds a lot like the notion of "bipartisan agreement"; it's a quaint idea, but it's also kind of a pipe dream. Yet one company, apparently unconvinced that people like getting things for free, is launching a new music service, specifically designed for those YouTubers looking for legal thrills.

Rumblefish's Friendly Music allows users to select from over 35,000 songs to use exclusively in non-commercial contexts, like scoring online videos. (If users want to use a Friendly Music song for commercial reasons, they'll have to procure a separate license.) For the price of $1.99, YouTube's John Williamses and Ennio Morricones can gain instant access to the full version of a given song, edit it to their hearts' desires, and add a little dramatic depth to their otherwise vanilla wedding videos. So far, none of the songs featured in Friendly Music's library are from major recording labels, although more so-called "name artists" are expected to sign on within the next few months.

The service was created by Rumblefish, in collaboration with YouTube's Google overlords, and, as the New York Times reports, was specially designed for the video-uploading connoisseur. Each of the songs was personally selected by the company, according to what service operators thought would be appropriate for most films. Users can search the library by artist name, song title or "mood," and can automatically ignore songs that have lyrics.

Rumblefish CEO Paul Anthony thinks Friendly Music fills a unique online niche, claiming that most of the "everyday filmmakers" on YouTube "don't have an outlet like this." If we're talking about legal outlets, then Anthony's probably correct in his assessment. But we're not convinced that consumers are ready to actually pay for music at a time when a simple Google search can still yield pretty much any piece of musical contraband one could possibly desire. Rumblefish's service may be the "friendly" choice for YouTube-ing do-gooders, but the "free" choice will still probably win out. [Ed. Note: We tend to disagree with Amar. We'd venture to guess amateur editors would want to support independent artists (like the ones on Rumblefish), and we can't forget the horrible tragedy that befell poor Keyboard Cat.] [From: New York Times]

Tags: FriendlyMusic, google, music, MusicVideo, onlinemusic, RumbleFish, top, youtube

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