With more than 2 billion global users and viewers watching over a billion hours of content on the platform daily, YouTube is a social media force to be reckoned with. It’s also thought that nearly 80% of web users have an account with this digital giant.
Among all those almost endless hours of video, you’ll notice that many, if not most, include music in their videos. This could be to introduce a video, as a background, to create atmosphere or tension, or as an ‘outro’ or finale. You’ll find a rich variety of music on pretty much every channel out there. But one thing we’re often asked is where YouTubers get their music from, given the various rules surrounding copyright.
If you want to use commercial music such as a hit song, you will need to clear both the rights and the rights to the recording, typically dealt with by the publisher and the record label respectively.
Either organization may decline permission once they’ve found out what exactly you plan on doing with the work, or they will negotiate a fee.
Terms, or length of copyright, may vary from country to country – in the UK, it’s valid for 70 years from the death of the final surviving author.
With so many hours of content arriving on YouTube by the minute, you might think the video content channel wouldn’t be able to keep track of it all. In fact, the platform’s Content ID system does this automatically and notifies the copyright owner. It’s a fully automated system with some incredible AI and high tech detection systems.
If you get the copyright strike you automatically loose monetization on the video. Your content can also be taken down entirely.
In very extreme cases you could be banned completely from YouTube if you get three notices or ‘strikes’ concerning copyright and don’t take any action. You will have seven days to act from the last notice before your channel gets disabled.