- All right, strap yourselves in folks,
because today's video is going to be a special one
because in order to illustrate my point,
I actually have to sing.
(clearing throat)
(upbeat music)
Hey everyone, it's Rob here,
welcoming you back to VidIQ as always,
and welcoming you back to the green screen.
I've decided to dust off the sheets for one outing,
but if you like this, do let us know
in the voting poll that's up there,
you may see more videos just like this.
Also it's been a while since we talked
about YouTube monetization
and in that time, I've bought some swag
especially for the event.
And finally, I can use it and talk all about this.
You should've heard of Creator Insider by now,
the YouTube channel run by YouTube employees.
There's loads of useful stuff on that channel,
you should definitely subscribe to it.
But that's not what I'm talking about today.
On another YouTube run channel called Team YouTube,
they post a monthly roundup of what's happening
on the platform and April's update had
some interesting snippets about copyright and monetization.
Did you know that even if you don't use
an original song in your videos,
it can still get a content ID copyright claim,
because it includes the composition and the melody.
There are two distinct copyrights in music,
as explained in this Q and A post on copyright from YouTube,
which I will leave a link to in the video description.
Most people are familiar with the copyright
for the artist or band who recorded the song,
but there is a second set of copyrights
for the lyrics and melody,
also known as the composition or publishing rights.
When you sing, hum or play all or some
of the song on an instrument,
even if you do it in an entirely original way,
you are using the copyrighted melody
and/or words and may receive a claim.
All of this of course, means that cover versions
may fall under this composition copyright umbrella.
For example:
♪ I can be your hero ♪
Is a copyrighted composition melody.
Now as with all copyright claims,
you can still dispute it if you feel
you have the rights to use that music under fair use.
Or if a rendition is so bad
that YouTube can't even detect it.
♪ I can kiss away the pain, oh yeah ♪
Just like that.
And to finish off this topic,
YouTube do say that most composition claims
are eligible for revenue sharing for creators
in the Partner Program.
It's all about the merch,
it's all about the merch,
merch, merch.
As always, this is a really hot topic for video creators
and I'm afraid there's not much new news
coming out from YouTube,
but they did highlight a couple of things.
The big number that seems to be confusing
a lot of people still, is 4000 watch time hours.
Because that only includes public,
and when we say public we mean public and unlisted.
I have asked YouTube personally about this
and they did confirm it includes unlisted.
But not private watch time hours.
Also any videos that you delete
that did have watch time in the last 12 months
do not count either.
Now as I say, I've done a massive FAQ on this very topic,
the link is over here,
definitely worth checking out
if you're in the monetization process.
They also briefly talked about wait times
and said that if your channel has been under review
for more than 30 days,
that means there may be a disagreement
between multiple reviewers of your channel.
That's kind of comforting to know that they can't agree
on something within YouTube themselves.
However what I don't think this fully addresses,
is when your channel is put into secondary review.
There still doesn't seem to be any answers on that.
Every time YouTube mention YPP wait times in their videos,
I do push them for an answer as to why
so many channels fall into a black hole of no decision
after three, six even 12 months
but I'm afraid to say I haven't got an answer yet.
I'll keep trying folks, I'll keep trying.
This topic probably needs a video in itself
so if you want one,
do let us known in your comments below,
but we need to talk a little bit about reused content.
This has nothing to do with copyright,
it has nothing to do with fair use,
this is more to do with YouTube's own house rules.
YouTube say that if you are uploading content
that is free to use, there is no copyright against it,
you have permission to use it,
but it is from multiple sources
or it's already been uploaded to YouTube,
you could be hit with this reused content penalty.
So to put this into practical terms,
this might be a listicle, five scariest roller coasters
or the top 10 head shots in Fortnite in April.
It could be that you've just got all of these clips
from different sources and put them together
and added nothing to the conversation,
or made it a transformative piece of content.
Now of course,
this gets into a very gray area very quickly
because there are thousands of channels
that put compilation content together
and seem to be monetized.
So yeah, you know what,
I probably need to do a detailed video about this.
This spirit of the reused content policy
is to make sure that YouTube are incentivizing
unique and original content in the YouTube Partner Program
and that they are protecting and rewarding
the creators who work hard on original content.
And to be honest, I can see their point.
If you found this video useful,
we've already done a bucket full on monetization on YouTube,
the playlist is here.
If you're still working towards monetization,
there's a helpful video there.
We'll see you on any of those right now,
and of course, enjoy the rest of your video-making day.
(claps)
(upbeat music)