The Victorian government has come under even more fire for their divisive new rebrand. As Fairfax reports, Premier Daniel Andrews has been accused of breaching copyright after his latest video promoting the state used a piece of unpaid music.
As readers can see and indeed hear below, the two-and-a-half-minute Visit Victoria film, which was uploaded to the Premier’s Facebook page on Saturday night, features background music bearing a very explicit aural watermark from a popular online audio market.
A female voice soothingly reading the words “AudioJungle” can be heard throughout the film, as the Victorian Premier is seen walking around Melbourne, touting it as a cultural hub and home to artists of all stripes, all the while using music that wasn’t paid for.
Melbourne-based video producer Ben Whimpey told Fairfax he noticed the gaff on Monday night. “Video producers …utilise services like AudioJungle where you have a whole series of stock music that you can purchase for a small fee to use in your video,” he said.
As Whimpey notes, watermarked previews of the stock music are available to hear before you purchase. “These websites allow you to download the music which has their watermark or audiomark throughout the whole video, in this particular case AudioJungle.”
“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.” However, according to a spokesman for the Premier, the whole thing is a “simple mistake”.
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“The government had all the licensing in place,” spokesman Chris Piper said. “However, a draft version of the video was accidentally uploaded rather than the final version, which did not contain the audio watermark.”
Mr Piper said the correct version of the video has since been uploaded on YouTube as well as the Visit Victoria website. Still, it’s not hard to understand why the “simple mistake” has raised a few eyebrows, considering the video was in support of a large government campaign.
“It is a lack of attention to detail. It makes our government look stupid,” said Mr Whimpey, who claims the reason many have taken issue with the controversial clip is because it was meant to be promoting the best Victoria has to offer.
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He said the incident also highlighted the constant copyright battle facing creatives. “As an artist, I spend a lot of money investing in intellectual property, a lot of it at my own expense,” he told The Age.
“In this particular case, a musician or an artist has created music that has effectively been stolen or ripped and placed in a video.” Fellow video content producer Adrian Jackson said the use of unpaid music “shows a lack of respect for creative professionals”.
Mr Jackson said he saw the video on Tuesday at 9.30am, but the clip was taken off the Premier’s Facebook page sometime before 4pm. “It shows a little a bit of carelessness and trying to do things on the cheap,” he said.
