The Ballad of Mumbo Jumbo
(5 min read)
On the morning of May 19, 2019, popular YouTuber & Minecraft Vlogger Mumbo Jumbo awoke to find his inbox under attack. An army of bots at the command YouTube’s ContentID System had found something they didn’t like: copyright violations... a lot of them.
Working on behalf of publishing powerhouse Warner Chappell, the bots discovered that 400 of Mumbo Jumbo’s videos used music that was not properly cleared and in turn belonged to them. As a result, Warner Chappell would not only gain control of those 400 videos, but also a percentage of the revenue generated as well. To further complicate matters, Mumbo Jumbo claimed innocence with a signed document from the artist (ProleteR) of the aforementioned music that permitted him to use it in his videos. Seems pretty cut and dry, right? Big bad music publisher giant trying to steal money from little, innocent Mumbo Jumbo.
But the plot thickens.
While Mumbo Jumbo did indeed receive the proper permission from ProleteR for the song itself, ProleteR did not clear the samples used in the track, which are owned by Warner Chappell, which is why the bots are after Mumbo Jumbo. In theory, Warner Chappell is fighting for the composers of the uncleared sample (consensus seems to be "Nothing Can Stop Me" by Curtis Mayfield.)
Meanwhile, Mumbo Jumbo thought he did the right thing by getting written permission, but the artist who illegally sampled the song is in no position to give that permission, especially when monetization is involved.
No matter whose side you are on, there is one thing that every YouTuber should take away from this:
You need to use properly licensed music on your channel.
In Mumbo Jumbo’s viral video explaining what was happening (posted before he found out the samples weren’t cleared), he mentions that being a YouTuber is his full-time work, his livelihood. This case struck a nerve for a lot of people. Copyright law is complicated, especially for non-musicians. Navigating the waters of clearances and permissions by yourself is no easy task. So if you’re a professional YouTuber and you want music in your videos, you either need to be as thorough and knowledgeable as a lawyer specializing in copyright law, hire a music supervisor to check your work, or you could simply license production music.
Three guesses which one of those options is the most cost-effective.
While Mumbo Jumbo did indeed receive the proper permission from the ProleteR for the song itself, ProleteR did not clear the samples used in the track, which are owned by Warner Chappell, which is why the bots are after Mumbo Jumbo.
Properly licensing production music gives you peace of mind when you’re creating and publishing your content. Don’t waste time with what you hope are legal agreements with people who also hope they’re doing it right. You’ll never have to worry about being the next Mumbo Jumbo. And you don’t need to spend countless hours searching for music that fits. Use that time to create more great stuff.
Check out our page of distributors around the world to find your territory, let them know you want to use the music and where, get a quote, and be confident that your content is free of these painful issues. In other words, don’t be like Mumbo Jumbo.
Epilogue: Since Mumbo Jumbo’s woes were so murky, he decided to remove the first 4 seconds of each of the flagged videos, where the theme music was contained. That’s 400 videos he needed to go through and manually edit before submitting his claim back to YouTube. Sounds fun, huh?
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