- Now here's a really interesting question,
can you use popular, copyrighted music, on your videos
on YouTube without getting a copyright strike
and can you monetize that content?
Putting my faith in YouTube on this one.
(high energy rock music)
Hello, I am Rob and welcome back to vidIQ
the YouTube tool and channel that educates you
on your YouTube journey.
Now a couple of things to say
before we jump into this video,
we apologize if there are any adverts on this video.
That doesn't usually happen with vidIQ
but you're gonna find out why very soon
and we do apologize to our audience in Australia
and New Zealand who might not be able to see this video
at all, although in saying that,
you won't be able to see this apology anyway.
Now of course you may recognize this very inspiring
and popular piece of music, but the question is
why are we using it right now?
Well I'm gonna show you how, let's take a look.
If you point your web browser to YouTube.com/music_policies
you can find out what will happen if you use music
that is searchable in the music policy directory.
In this example we are playing Wake Up from Arcade Fire
and when we search for this song, it says the following.
If you use this song on a YouTube video,
it will be viewable everywhere save for two countries.
Those being Australia and New Zealand,
hence my apology earlier on.
I am not allowed to monetize the video, however.
But if I wanted to do a cover version of this song,
the video would be viewable in all countries on YouTube
and I might be able to monetize the video
and share the income with the copyright owner of the song.
This is concent ID in action.
When YouTube can automatically detect a song,
it treats it as copyright content
and it can apply the specific policy
as defined in the music directory.
For a lot of creators, this usually happens when you try
and sneak in a tiny snippet of a song
or use what you thought was royalty-free music.
What often happens in this case
is that the copyright claimant will monetize your content
and since you use their material,
usually without their permission,
there isn't much you can do about it.
That's simply the way YouTube currently works.
Now as exciting as this may sound,
using copyright content without the fear
of getting copyright strike, it is in actual fact
a very dangerous game.
For the vast majority of popular music, recent music,
or music you're just desperate to use,
the usage policy will be a flat out no.
Stating that your video may be blocked or muted
and you may even get a copyright strike too.
And in pretty much every single circumstance
you won't be able to monetize your content.
At best you may be able to share the revenue
if you do a cover version.
You also have to consider this, just because you used
copyrighted music in a video at a time when YouTube
said it was safe to do so through their music policies,
doesn't mean that that video is protected
from copyright issues in the future.
On YouTube's dedicated support page on usage restriction
and claimed music, they say that copyright holders
can change their policies and issue copyright takedown
notices under certain circumstances.
You video's status could change in the future
and may even be removed from YouTube if a copyright owner
makes a different decision in your individual case
and changes the policies that apply to the music
in your video.
All of which comes back to the question
as to why are we using this song in this video.
Well I checked on YouTube and there are other videos
that have used this song that have been on YouTube
for more than ten years so we think we're relatively safe
with this one.
This is very much an educational video,
which we think is pretty safe,
and of course we don't monetize our content here on vidIQ
so we don't have to worry about losing income
from this particular video.
This is all about helping you and providing value
to you as video creators.
And this is what happened when we uploaded the video
onto our channel, YouTube did identify the copyrighted music
and by clicking into the claim, we can see that the video
was blocked in Australia and New Zealand,
it's not eligible for monetization,
but it has not impacted the channel
as regard to a copyright strike.
So to answer those two questions,
can you use copyrighted music in your videos?
Yes as long as you check but you're probably very limited
with what you can do.
And if you want to monetize your content,
can you use copyright music in those videos?
In almost all circumstances, certainly not,
unless you're doing a cover version of the music,
in which case you may be able to share half of the revenue.
Ultimately if your strategy is to profit
from other people's work on YouTube,
I'm afraid you've got this all wrong.
Now absolutely there is the strong argument of fair use
and we are not lawyers, this is not legal advice.
To be honest, those are topics
for an entirely different video.
Now if you wanna make sure that you dodge
all of these copyright issues and use music
that is guaranteed to be safe on YouTube,
then check out the video over here
and if you want more YouTube beginner's guides,
just like this, check out the playlist down there.
Thank you very much for watching, as always,
and enjoy the rest of your video-making day.