Day 23: Finding Royalty-Free Music For YouTube

If you’ve kept up with my blog posts and YouTube videos, you’ve probably noticed the recurring theme of copyright infringement on YouTube.

Let’s say you’re a vlogger hoping to go “viral” on YouTube with your videos, but you use copyrighted music in the background of your videos. What could happen?

1. In the best case scenario, YouTube will do nothing to your video, and run advertisements in the video in which the payments do directly to the record label. For someone hoping to make money off of their YouTube videos, this option is not ideal. For example, I’ve posted one video in which I used Elton John’s “Honky Cat” as my background music, and have yet to be contacted from the site about this copyright issue.
2. In the worst case scenario, YouTube has the authority to remove any/all of the audio from your videos or just remove the video entirely.

If you want to add a popular copyrighted track to your videos the legal way, there are several tedious (and expensive) steps to take. If I wanted to legally use “Honky Cat” in the video of my cat doing cute things, I would have to purchase mechanical rights, public performance royalties, synchronization and transcription rights, publishing rights, neighboring rights, and master use rights. At this point, my wallet will have died from sheer exhaustion!

Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to forego music entirely for your videos – there are plenty of avenues for selecting royalty-free music that is perfectly legal for YouTube. Creative Commons-licensed music can be found easily and used at no fee to the video creator. However, Creative Commons is not to be confused with “public domain,” and there are restrictions.

For example, if you are planning to use music in a video for commercial works and/or you’re planning on making money off of the video, you cannot use a Creative Commons-licensed song without making a separate leasing agreement with the artist or author of the track. That individual may choose to charge you for use of the song, or not allow it to be used at all.

So aside from Creative Commons, what other royalty-free music options do you have?

Incompetech is a great option for finding royalty-free music. It offers a wide variety of royalty free music for use in film and video projects at a good quality and low price. The only thing stipulation is that they require attribution – openly giving credit to the person who created the work. There is a $5 suggested donation, but for YouTubers with a small or non-existent budget, this is probably the best option.

Check out the video below for instructions on how to use Incompetech-provided music for YouTube.

To learn about more options for attaining royalty-free music, check out this blog post.

Day 18: Copyright Infringement on YouTube

When I started learning more about YouTube Partnerships, one of the first thing I researched was how a person should go about becoming a partner. According to YouTube’s Partnership Qualifications page, there are three basic requirements a person has to meet:

You have too…

• Create original videos suitable for online streaming.
• Own or have express permission to use and monetize all audio and video content that you upload—no exceptions.
• Regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users, or you publish popular or commercially successful videos in other ways (such as DVDs sold online).

On YouTube’s FAQ page, many users have asked why their applications to become a YouTube Partner have been denied. YouTube answered that an account may be found undesirable if that person uses any of the following material without explicit permission of the person who created that material:

• Music (including cover songs, lyrics, and background music)
• Graphics and pictures (including photographs and artwork)
• Movie or TV visuals
• Video game or software visuals. Click here for details.
• Live performances (including concerts, sporting events, and shows)

That got me thinking… I mean, most of the videos I watch on YouTube have some sort of background music playing. If you’ve seen either of these videos, you know what I mean.

Both videos used copyrighted music (Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” and Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”, respectively), both videos received millions of views, and both videos are STILL up on YouTube. This got me thinking about copyright infringement and what, exactly, the rules are on YouTube.

So, what is copyright infringement anyway?

According to YouTube…

“Copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner.”

Most often, the reason videos are taken down on YouTube is because they contain unauthorized copies of copyrighted content, and the owners of the copyrighted content alert YouTube that their content is being used without their permission.

YouTube’s copyright infringement page offers some examples of potentially infringing conent:

• TV shows
  • Including sitcoms, sports broadcasts, news broadcasts, comedy shows, cartoons, dramas, etc.
  • Includes network and cable TV, pay-per-view and on-demand TV
• Music videos, such as the ones you might find on music video channels
• Videos of live concerts, even if you captured the video yourself
  • Even if you took the video yourself, the performer controls the right to use his/her image in a video, the songwriter owns the rights to the song being performed, and sometimes the venue prohibits filming without permission, so this video is likely to infringe somebody else’s rights.
• Movies and movie trailers
• Commercials
• Slide shows that include photos or images owned by somebody else

What happens when YouTube finds copyrighted material in your video?

You will most likely first receive an email from YouTube notifying you about your copyright infringemen. From there, a few things can happen.

Your video is matched to third part content

This means that your video has material that’s matched to a third party source (like a record label or television network). In these circumstances, your video will still be available worldwide, although advertisements will be placed in your video in the form of pop-up ads at the bottom of the video screen. These ads, when clicked, generate revenue for the third party source instead of you.

Your video is rejected/banned

If your video is regarded as having “questionable content” such as nudity, violence on others, or inappropriate or derogatory language, YouTube has the right to reject or ban your video. This action may result in your account being flagged, your videos removed from the site, or your account banned all together. Unless you have successfully become a partner with YouTube, they can pretty much say what is and what is not allowed on their site. However, there is something though called “Fair Use.”

YouTube defines FAIR USE as:

“It’s possible that you may be permitted to include small excerpts from copyrighted material in your video if what you intend to use is insubstantial or is incidentally included, or where the intended use you have for the copyrighted material falls within a exception or limitation to copyright under the law in your country.”

However, this depends on the copyright laws within the country in which you live. At this time there is no defined answer as to what is and isn’t allowed in the terms of “fair use.” This is a huge grey area, because some videos (as is the case with the 2 videos above) are allowed on one channel, while other, similar videos are banned completely. Perhaps that thin line depends on the number of views your video receives. Keenan Cahill’s “Teenage Dream” parody has landed him on popular TV shows like Chelsea Lately, Web Soup, and Tosh.0.

YouTube has yet to fully define the paramaters of what they do and don’t allow in copyright infringement cases, but it’s a safe bet to refrain from using copyrighted music in the background of your videos. Instead, I’ll show you how to go about attaining royalty-free music through YouTube in my next post.