FOR SUBS ONLY: Ability to turn off things that can lead to "track theft" | Voters

FOR SUBS ONLY: Ability to turn off things that can lead to "track theft"

under review

iNever

Track theft is a very big deal for some people, and significantly more likely to be a bigger deal for subscribers. People like Gainn have stopped posting most tracks to the Udio site completely due to the way things currently are.
The suggestion is allow everything as is as default, but then allow certain things to be turned off on both a track to track basis or through the global preferences as default. Things like disabling music downloads, video downloads, extensions off your track, remixing of your track, inpainting of your track (which I know can't be done, but you could allow this option if we had the ability to turn it off?).
I know this is a huge thing for a lot of people and would be very welcome. I feel like it would make for a great "Subscriber Only" feature. Because creativity and use of samples and things on Udio should, by default, be allowed but then paying members want the ability to stop track theft.

September 4, 2024

forrmorr134567754

I can download your track and upload it to a2a anyway. Even if there is no "download" button. Don't publish tracks and that's it.

HGTY

First if you fgenerate an awesome song, don't share it, then, if someone wants to steal the song, anybody can reccord the audio on his computer and there's no way to avoid this issue than just not sharing in public your tracks, or sharing the one you won't use for your project.

Gainn

HGTY if it's as pointless as you say then implementing it harms nobody. Why would you object?

UdioAdam

marked this post as

under review

Acknowledging the understandable interest in this here and appreciate the conversation! We're exploring options.

Monster Crush

It's a big deal for me, I left this in the request feature thread in discord, I'll post it here so it doesn't get buried
I know you could just "Not Publish." and I think it's time for me to follow that advice even though I enjoy sharing my content.
What I don't enjoy is having people download my music without hindrance and re-upload the content under their names.
Did I create all the sounds? No, but I spent hours piecing extensions together, and I do spend plenty of time writing lyrics without having the A.I generating it for me. I take a lot of pride in my lyrics; it's a therapeutic and creative outlet for me.
Being able to publish and share has led me to a fantastic community, some of whom I enjoy spending time with outside of Udio, and I'm grateful for that connection.
However, that connection doesn't protect me as a consumer on Udio. To issue a copyright strike on YouTube, you have to provide personal information—your address, phone number, legal name. It’s not worth the risk to me.
So, I’m unpublishing all my music from this point on, and may only casually create for personal use moving forward.

Preample

Yes 
+
Having the option to make one's prompts completely private. After all, this is really where the hard work goes for many.

unbruitsourd

As much as I'd like to say it's a good idea, as far as I'm concerned, it's a long shot... in the sense that, you know, the music industry has never succeeded in eradicating piracy on the Internet. Cutting off access to WAVs is a start, but if a pirate wants to download your song, he's going to do it with or without a download button.

Watermarking every audio file could be an interesting intermediate solution which, without preventing a pirate from downloading your song, would at the very least allow the creator to have proof that he or she is the original author and thus potentially be able to ask Youtube or whatever platform to remove the song in question.

Gainn

unbruitsourd downloading in MP3 is less the issue as they'll just get it elsewhere. it's the ability to replicate the song in the udio format in their own account and then grab stems and do things with it they can't with an audio upload.

unbruitsourd

Gainn 1- It's easy to create stems locally on your own PC with the right tools, or using a web service (there's many), even using compressed mp3. Personnaly, I prefer the stems from RipX instead of Udio for my own local remix.
2- With an mp3, you can upload it on Udio and remix it with a very low variance value anyway. 
There's not an easy solution for this problem unfortunatly.

Pasquale T.

good idea!

Teebo DK

While I'm personally not concerned at all over this (my songs are so unpopular that nobody would even consider grabbing them) I know that many others are deeply worried, to a point where it's completely destroying their enjoyment of songwriting. I therefore support this suggestion, hoping it would bring back some peace of mind for those affected.

Gainn

While anyone can extend or remix anything there is no "safety" for things we create. If udio wants to get involved in the publishing side (as recent polls seem to suggest) then steps towards protecting it's creators work should be a very high priority. 
Being able to disable those and also download of WAV files is about the best level of protection we can get in this type of thing.
It needs to be an option because there are times you'd want to do it, but I don't think it should be default behaviour.
I've stopped publishing the things that were my most popular work because of people doing bootlegs more than just straight up stealing.

UdioAdam

Appreciate you sharing this idea!
Of the limitations you've suggested, do you feel that limiting audio and video downloads would stem most of the concerning behaviors?
(my gut is that people misappropriating others' work likely take the paths of least resistance, and having to extend or remix might not be worth their bother, but I welcome your thoughts on this!)

iNever

UdioAdam Not really. Because people can easily remix at low variance or extend and then download or publish for themselves.
Unless maybe if it's marked (like audio upload tracks are for never being able to publish) where nobody else could download or publish to the Udio site after the track has been marked by the user 'undownloadable', so even after extending / remixing they couldn't download.
Not sure if this could still be exploited in any way or not.

Kuroodo Ditory

UdioAdam To add my input, there are some songs I have resisted sharing with others, even for feedback, as well as resisted publishing, because I wanted to avoid people being able to extend, remix, or download the track without my permission.

If the culture/community that Udio has in mind and wants to build is for people to freely extend and remix each other's music, essentially for everyone to freely share and express ideas, then I don't necessarily have a problem with that. I welcome it. However, it would still make me personally hesitant to share and publish some tracks on this platform, which could also be the opposite of what you intend for the platform.

iNever

Kuroodo Ditory This isn't even something I'm concerned with myself at all. I suggested it because I know how big a deal it is for some people.
I personally hope to see Udio as a default fully sharing and open platform, but with options for subscribers to have more control as many want. It would help bolster the overall subscriber package also, which is a win for Udio :)
But maybe it would be good even to have for everyone, I dunno, that would be up to the dev team anyway

Andreh P.

UdioAdam the current US legislation is really "not right". But if UDIO as a major player would contact the main streaming platforms (youtube, spotify, Apple and Amazon Music) to enforce the creation date as a proof of authorship, that would help a lot. You need the law to sue on copyright issues. But you just need the will to enforce truth and authorship. I believe that all distributors askfor a checkmark if you created that work or are using somebody elses. Is not about retaining copyright.

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