- I'm gonna tell you the truth
about using music in your YouTube videos
and this includes free music, paid music
and music that you think is safe, but it's probably not.
Now before we get into this,
there's some things that I wanna clarify.
I wanna explain the difference
between a copyright claim and a copyright strike,
because I know there's a lot of confusion there.
A copyright claim means that someone owns
what you're using in your video.
Could be a music track, it could be an image,
it could be a video, and they are trying
to claim the revenue on your video.
That means however much money you make in ad revenue,
they get to keep it, you lose it.
Now, YouTube says that copyright claims
do not hurt your channel, but it's just bad practice
and bad business to get copyright claims in the first place,
so you wanna avoid them if at all possible.
Now, copyright strike is as painful
as falling into this giant cactus here,
you wanna avoid a copyright strike.
That means that the right holders of the music
or the image or the video, they don't want your revenue,
they just want to take it down.
They wanna remove it from your video.
And this is where you get in trouble
because if you get three strikes, three copyright strikes,
you lose your channel, its gone, you can't get it back.
And if you think that's no big deal
because you'll just make a second channel,
jokes on you because guess what?
Once you have one channel terminated,
any channel that you create after that,
they can terminate that as well.
It's in the terms of service, if you lose one channel,
you're technically not supposed
to create additional channels.
So you wanna avoid copyright strikes
like I wanna avoid jumping into this cactus.
So now that you know the difference between
a copyright claim and a copyright strike,
let me help you not get either one of those.
And the first thing you need to do is make sure
that you get all of your music or images or videos
from reputable sources only.
And what I mean by that is,
you only wanna get music from sources
that do not have the history of hitting people
with copyright claims or copyright strikes.
So here's something you can do, if you're getting
your music from a particular YouTube channel
or a particular website,
"Hey, copyright free, whatever, use our music.
Just put a link to us down in the description."
Here's what you do, go to Google, put their name in
and then write copyright claim or copyright strike,
and then look at the results.
You're probably going to get a lot of results.
This tactic is something that unfortunately
a lot of other creators do who are making music,
"Hey, use my music, it's free to use, it's free to use.
Put it on your videos, get tons of views on it."
And then they come back and they claim your ad revenue,
now, I don't wanna throw shade on any of these
YouTube channels or any of
the websites offering totally free music.
But you need to be careful and here's why,
because a lot of them accept submissions for musicians.
That means that I can create a music track
and I can submit it to them and then they'll let you use it.
Sounds good, right?
Well, on the surface it is good, it's a great idea.
It helps musicians get their music out there
and helps get them known and a lot of them are legit.
However, here's the problem, let's say
that I got a drum kit or a couple of drum loops
from somebody who said,
"Hey, use my royalty free drum loops."
So I made a song based on those royalty free drum loops
that someone gave me, but it turns out
one of those drum loops is actually a song from James Brown.
Guess who's gonna get a copyright claim?
Because you're using a track that has a drum loop
or a part of a drum loop that comes from James Brown.
I mean, you might even get a strike from that.
So this is why getting music
from a totally reputable source matters
because you don't know the source.
You don't know where they're getting their loops,
you don't know where they're getting their beats.
You don't know where they're getting their baselines
or the guitars, or you don't know
where they're getting their background vocals.
They could be taking them from other songs,
spreading them out on the internet and say,
"Hey, I made these, you can use them."
But they got their loops and their tracks
from a source, that can cause a problem for you.
Now, an outside video would not be an outside video
unless they were a bunch of barking dogs in it,
and I'm walking up on a handful of barking dogs
and I hope I don't get--
(dogs barking) (mumbles)
I would not break in into that house.
So bringing this part full circle and in the shade,
avoid those YouTube channels
that are allowing you to download music.
Avoid those websites, because you don't know
where they are getting their music.
You don't know where they're getting their loops,
you don't know where they're getting their tracks
and vocals, their baselines--
Whoa! Hey! Whoa!
Whoa! Whoa! Hey!
That was mildly scary, scene fade for me
in the hospital getting rabies shots.
I'm gonna get out of here.
So now you're probably asking,
"Okay, great. That sounds cool.
I'm gonna stop getting my music from those places,
but where do I get my music?"
And this is the important part,
if you want free totally safe music,
get music from the YouTube Audio Library,
and I'm gonna put a link to this down
in the description below.
This is music created by YouTube.
Now I'm gonna be honest, it's not the best music,
but if you need free music, hassle-free music,
where you're not going to get a claim,
you need to use the YouTube Audio Library.
But there's a one very important thing
when you use a YouTube Audio Library
that you need to know about.
And that's that when you're searching for tracks
to use or sound effects, you can sort by attribution.
Now, attribution means that you give credit to the artist,
you can sort by no attribution or by attribution.
So if you're using a track that requires attribution,
you need to give them proper credit in your description.
If you don't do that, if you're using a track
that requires attribution and you don't give it,
you can get a copyright claim.
YouTube Audio Library is totally safe,
so long as you follow the rules.
So pay attention to that and sort by no attribution
if you don't wanna add anything to your description.
That's the 100% safest free music resource
that I've come across, it's created directly by YouTube.
You're not gonna top that in terms of safety
and not having to worry about claims or strikes,
as long as you pay attention and sort
and give attribution where attribution is due.
So let's talk about paid services
because there are a ton of paid services out there
and some of them are good, some of them are great
and I'm also gonna put links to a few of them down
in the description, these are some of the ones that I use.
These are ones that are more reputable,
for example, I like to use Epidemic Sound.
Epidemic Sound is a monthly fee...
And I'm gonna explain all this by the way,
underneath each link, so I'm gonna link to all
the services that I recommend and then I'm gonna write
a little bit about them, the pros and cons,
if there are any, and then I'm gonna write
how much it costs, but Epidemic Sound is a great one.
It's a monthly service and you can use those tracks
for as long as you remain a member,
and if you cancel your membership,
any videos that were published during the time
you were a member, those are not gonna have any problems.
So this is a great feature and I'll explain more
about them down in the description below.
Another service that I use is called LICKD.
You've seen me make videos about LICKD before
and I'll link to those down in the description as well.
Now LICKD is a service that allows you
to download popular songs and use them
on your YouTube videos, but it's not
a monthly ongoing service like Epidemic Sound
or some of the others, you pay per song
and you use that song on your YouTube channel.
I'll write more about them down in the description below
as well as link out to some of the videos
that I made about LICKD.
And of course there's more than those two
and I'll link out to a couple of those
as well down in the description
so make sure to check that out.
And that leads me right to the next thing
I wanna talk about and that's the rumors
that you can use any track from anywhere
and simply credit the artist down in the description
and you're gonna be fine.
This is going to land you with a copyright claim
or a copyright strike, this is false.
You cannot grab any track and just simply give them credit
and continue to use the track,
it's only a matter of time before they get you.
It might be a claim, it might be a strike,
you don't know, but are you willing to risk
your entire channel, because let's say
you have three videos using the same track
and they hit you with three strikes at the same time,
guess who loses their YouTube channel?
It's just not worth it, it's not worth it
to take the risk if you're serious about YouTube,
especially if you're trying to make money on YouTube
or you're trying to build a business or a brand on YouTube.
Get your music from a reputable source
and don't take any chances when it comes
to getting strikes.
Because you don't know you could get a claim,
most of them are claims, but sometimes
they do give a strike, three.
And having said all of that, you also need
to understand that even if you pay for music,
there is the possibility that you will get
an accidental claim.
Because what happens is, the YouTube AI,
they get loaded up with all of these music tracks
and they can identify them as soon
as you publish your video.
Now what can happen is
you might get an accidental claim
when you upload a video on a track
that you have a license to.
But here's what you do, you have to contact the service.
So if that happens with Epidemic Sound
or it happens with Musicbed or Artlist or LICKD,
you have to contact them immediately
and they'll sort that for you.
They go to bat for you to make sure
that you get the claim removed,
that's what paying for music is all about.
You get to license the music and if there's a problem
they sorted out for you, totally worth it.
And of course you might be asking,
"Well, what do I do if I get a claim?"
You can dispute the claim inside of YouTube,
they give you an option where you can do that
and you also need to contact the source
where you got the track in the first place,
you need to contact them immediately.
Now, here's a little trick for this,
instead of uploading and publishing immediately,
upload your video a good 12 to 24 hours
before you need to publish the video.
Because once you upload the video,
the AI is gonna see what's in your video
before you even publish it.
So there's a good chance that
if you're going to have a copyright claim,
it's not 100% here, but there's a good chance
that if you're going to have a claim or a strike,
you're going to get it before you publish.
While it's sitting there in the staging area,
unlisted or private, the AI can still see that.
So if you give yourself time, 12 hours, 24 hours,
and you get that claim, that gives you time
to contact YouTube and dispute it
and you can contact the source, you can contact
wherever you licensed the music to begin with.
So give yourself a little buffer there,
give yourself some wiggle room
so if you have any claims or strikes,
you can deal with them before your video goes public,
because if you're monetized and you go public
and you get that strike, you get that claim,
you're gonna lose monetization right out of the gate.
Give yourself some wiggle room and that won't happen.
And just leads me to another important point
because a lot of people are getting scammed here,
a lot of people are getting hacked.
Anytime you receive an email about a claim
or a strike, and that we need to click something
in your email, don't do it.
Don't ever click on this stuff in your email
because there's a lot of hackers,
there's a lot of scammers who are sending out
these bogus emails right now trying to get you to click.
Once you click, they can get access
to your account, you don't wanna do that.
So if you do receive an email and it looks legit,
log into YouTube directly through a browser.
Do not, do not, do not click on anything in the email.
Go into the YouTube Studio to see if the claim
or the strike is legit and deal with it
from inside of there.
Never ever, ever deal with it from inside an email
because as soon as you click in there,
they can start gathering information,
they might've been able to get your password.
They might even be able
to take total control of your account.
If you go to Twitter, if you go to Reddit,
if you search on Google, you're gonna see endless people
are getting hacked.
People are losing their channels and it all starts
from installing something or clicking on something
that usually comes from an email.
So please for the sake of your channel,
don't click on anything that comes in through your email.
Now as I said before, I'm gonna link out
to some of my favorite services down
in the description below, but I wanna hear from you.
Let me know who are you using,
where are you getting your music from?
Have you had any problems?
If so, how did you resolve them?
I would love to hear from you, so go down
and leave a comment and let me know.
I read every single question and comment
and I reply to as many of them as possible.
And when this video is over,
I'm gonna go down there and see
who's your favorite music service
and I'm gonna see what problems you've had
and how you resolve them.
Because all the information that we've shared,
the proper information, the correct information
that gets shared within the community,
this is gonna help other people who are coming
onto the platform and they're unsure where to get music
and they're unsure of how to deal with specific problems
if they have a claim or a strike.
So I'd appreciate any input that you do have.
Now, if you're wondering if you can use your own music,
your own creation in your YouTube videos,
Instagram videos, Facebook videos, and all of that.
Yes, you can.
However, here's something to be mindful of,
if you've created music and you've registered
that music somewhere, you have a record deal,
you've put it on Spotify or whatever,
there is a chance that you could get a claim
or even a strike because they may have registered
your music for you.
So do a lot of research on this
and make sure that you're doing the right things.
You can white list your music,
there's ways to do that so research that to make sure
you don't get a claim or a strike on your own creation.
And if you wanna learn even more
about how to make content with your phone,
how to live stream with your phone,
how to edit videos with your phone or where to get music,
go ahead and tap on one of the videos
that I'm showing on the screen right now,
both of those can do that.
Thank you so much for watching, I do appreciate it
and I'll see you in the next video.