Warning on betarecords.com and other sites like it

[mattinbeloit]

I've been seeing more and more of this latley and is something that I see as a possible problem in the near future and thought I would relay the info in this thread since it gets more hits. It started out in the "other instruments" thread with some guy comming in and writing this as his first and only post

Hey if you're an independent musician looking to upload and showcase your material for free, check out http://www.betarecords.com.

It's a new website for unsigned artists. You can find other artists to hook-up and collaborate with as well.

Check out our artists page at:
http://www.betarecords.com/phixations


Cheers!

This is an excerpt from the sites terms of use that I found

USE OF MEMBER MATERIALS: Although all BETA members reserve ownership rights to all their uploaded materials, you will grant BETA Records, LLC the right, without prior permission, to use, distribute and promote any and all uploaded materials (including, but not limited to, songs, pictures, videos, member profiles, emails, event listings, blogs, etc) free of charge, royalties, or claims.

This is a very interesting terms of use. In other words, they can use anything you upload on there and market it as they please. Scenereo: You post a few original songs on there, maybe they are preatty good quality and not bad. You end up signing a record deal with a company later on and make an album and do really well. They can take any stuff you put on there and sell them as demo's or something once you are famous and you will not see a penny. They could also possibly claim ALL roylaties to anything you put on there that could turn out to be a hit later on. This might seem far fetched or something, but I just want you guys to be aware of sites like this and what they are capable of. On the other hand I think this is a preatty cool site and should be a fun experiment, i just want you guys to know that in the long run they have rights to anything you put on there, and that buggs the hell out of me knowing that something that I worked hard on and put alot of my heart, mind, and time into can be used at someone leasure. Just a thought for ya all .

[Brent]

I think Myspace has a thing like that too. Except with Myspace I think they can only use your stuff as long as you keep it on myspace.