Believe SAS

Believe Digital advertises itself as a French company which distributes digital music in Europe for independent artists and labels. The company is also known for allegedly fraudulent copyright claims on artists' music. Believe's catalogue includes "Unbelievable" by EMF, and the catalogues of Naïve Records and Nuclear Blast. It also serves as the distributor for the labels Wall of Sound and Saregama. Believe Digital claims to be the official digital distributor of the Queen songs. The company was founded in 2005 by Denis Ladegaillerie, Arnaud Chiaramonti and Nicolas Laclias. Believe acquired the American digital service TuneCore in April 2015. Believe Digital's expansion was fueled by $60m growth capital investment from Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) and XAnge. In August 2016, the company acquired the failing French independent label Naive Records for €10m, seeking to improve value from the company's extensive back catalogue, and restarted the label's issuing of new recordings as physical CDs in 2017. In September 2018, Believe acquired a 49% stake in French indie label Tôt ou tard from Wagram Music. In October 2018, Believe acquired a majority stake in German label Nuclear Blast. The company has come under fire from numerous indie music developers and content creators for falsely claiming ownership of other artists' songs. For example, TeknoAXE, a royalty-free music artist, claims to have faced a copystrike from Believe Music in mid-2018. The strike in question was on a video containing a particular piece of his original music. TeknoAXE found out later that other creators who had fairly used his piece in their own work were also facing copyright strikes for the song. The strikes were all from Believe Music. According to TeknoAXE, by using Believe Digital's legal page, he was eventually able to have the strike taken down. More recently, the YouTube channel Rousseau faced a near deletion because of copyright claims by Believe Digital. The channel, a classical piano music channel featuring live piano and digital visuals, had several videos claimed for both music and visuals by Believe Digital. Rousseau explained in a tweet on 12 January 2019 that because he cannot afford to sue the company, he relies wholly on disputing its claims through YouTube's claim system. Additionally, because of the number of claims, had he not won the dispute, he would have been unable to post videos, and, had the company struck another video, the channel would have been taken down entirely. Other creators have claimed foul play as well, such as Jackie M, a food and lifestyle YouTuber who explained in a Medium article that although she always found copyright-free music for her videos, the company has been striking claims against her content on a "near-daily basis."