The Victorian State Government and its Premier, Daniel Andrews, have been accused of not paying for music which was used in a recent video promoting the state to tourists.
As Fairfax Media reports, a two-and-a-half minute Visit Victoria video was uploaded to Premier Andrews’ Facebook page on Saturday, 15th August, but some viewers soon noticed a problem with the clip’s background music.
Throughout the video, which has since been deleted, the word “AudioJungle” can be heard being repeated in the background as the Premier talks up Melbourne and calls for more people to visit Victoria.
The repeating “AudioJungle” line is an audio watermark which was placed on the music used in the clip by an audio marketplace of the same name. Such watermarks typically only appear if the audio isn’t properly licensed or paid for, but Premier Andrews’ spokesman Chris Piper dismisses the clip’s audio as a “simple mistake”.
“The government had all the licensing in place,” Mr Piper says. “However, a draft version of the video was accidentally uploaded rather than the final version, which did not contain the audio watermark.”
Melbourne-based video producer Ben Whimpey says he noticed the error in Premier Andrews’ video on Monday night, and says services like AudioJungle are commonly used, but in this case the audio’s copyright was breached.
“These websites allow you to download the music which has their watermark or audiomark throughout the whole video, in this particular case AudioJungle,” Mr Whimpey says.
“So as the music is playing you hear underneath, ‘AudioJungle, AudioJungle’, which identifies that this music has been stolen or hasn’t been paid or licensed correctly.”
Visit Victoria’s new tourism video (below) has been re-uploaded to Premier Andrews’ Facebook page with the correct audio, but the mishap hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“It is a lack of attention to detail. It makes our government look stupid,” Mr Whimpey says.
“As an artist, I spend a lot of money investing in intellectual property, a lot of it at my own expense. In this particular case, a musician or an artist has created music that has effectively been stolen or ripped and placed in a video.”
So while the Andrews Government is dismissing their error, Victoria’s proposed “The Live Music State” number-plates could have almost been retitled “The Stolen Music State”.
Envato, which runs the AudioJungle site, is yet to comment on the Andrews Government’s copyright stuff-up. Catch the correct Visit Victoria clip, below.
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Posted by Daniel Andrews on Monday, 17 August 2015
