How To Legally Cover Songs On YouTube Without Copyright Claims
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ค. 2024
- This question has come in a lot recently and it's not an easy one to answer as copyright and licensing can be quite a complicated topic with lots of grey areas. But if you want to know once and for all how to legally cover songs online.. Look no further!
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Hey! I’m Damian Keyes and I've worked with musicians every day of my life for the past 20 years. The internet is de ply untrusting understandably and here is my background so you can have the full picture.
When I was 18, I was signed to a major label and at 23 I co-founded a Music University in Europe called BIMM (valued at $300M). I’m also a bass player, I’ve played for a number of artists including Eric Clapton, Alanis Morrisette and Billy Cobham. I initially retired at 30, but realised that life gets boring if you’re not building!
I have always been in-between the music industry and education which is how I ended up building my TH-cam channel - I’ve been teaching artists how to release music long before it was a ‘niche’! I now educate artists around the world with my Academy, TH-cam channel and Social Agency.
It’s great to meet you and looking forward to working together on your music!
How To Avoid Copyright Strikes: Scroll back up and hit the like button!
Seriously tho, tell me about your experiences with using covers!
I’ve released covers before but I’ve had licenses for it because they were tracks I was posting on iTunes and Spotify. There was only one time where I made a music video for Dr. Dre’s Talking To My Diary and I couldn’t upload it to TH-cam because of copyright. So I posted on Vimeo and it blew up and went viral. Someone posted it on TH-cam, guess him or his team found it and took that down as quickly as possible.
I haven't really done any covers before, even though I have as many of them planned as I do regular songs haha.
That being said, Distrokid offers licensing services with their distribution. When you submit your song, all you have to do is select that it's a cover and Distrokid will take care of all the licensing for you (:
We’re not doing covers because of the complications you’ve noted.
You won't get your channel taken down for 3 copyright claims(to my knowledge at least). You WILL for 3 copyright Strikes. I get a claim on every cover I make. Just clarifying, I'm sure that's what you meant, but, not everybody would understand that. Great video tho! Learned a bunch. Thank you
Justin Wunderlich do you get email or something ? Where do you see copyright claim?
11:16 you're welcome.
jesus, thank you
Thank you
I gave up and deleted my whole channel 🙃
Thxxxxxx
Tqsm !
Actual tip starts at 12:13
bruhhh
Thank you 🙏
Thank you so much!
My hero!
Is it me or he basically said NOTHING
can you "Imagine" how many Beatles covers there are..
😂👌👌
😂😂😂
that's easy… if you try
Oh, you're just a dreamer...
@@andrewbuhman1066 But he's not the only one...
I hate this whole thread. :P
Speed 1.5x much better
thanks
To some people that says " i don't think it could be that serious. No one will ever notice my channel anyways." The other day i was live on instagram. Was listening to Keina Suda - Veil and a minute later they blocked my live stream saying that the song is not mine and that if i do it again my account will be taken down. Bro how fast are they?
that is nasty im shaking in my chair now this is nightmare material
But...I released plenty of cover songs on Instagram, but I never got banned !
I've been making a whole bunch of covers over the past weeks and spent ageeesss finding all of this information. Good to have it all in one place!
I've been constantly researching and getting frustrated.
In summary:
- The Harry Fox Agency
- Louder
- Easy Song Licensing
- We Are The Hits
- Contact the publishers yourself
Literally. lol!
🤣
Easy *Song* Licensing
Bless, was looking for this comment
I’ve only got less than 100 subs- however, We are the hits let me know they can monetize my covers, if and when i hit the level to monetize all my videos... they seem like some pretty cool folks.
Thanks, this was really helpful because I’ve been meaning to upload covers to TH-cam for a while now
Actually it also depends on the copyright holders themselves. There’s a reason why it’s “all rights reserved” which means it’s up to them to let you release the cover or not
It cant be as complicated as this surely. There are thousands of youtube channels with people sitting in their front rooms, doing simple reaction videos to artists, or singing cover songs etc. There must be an easier answer to be able to do this.
I believe TH-cam should make a system where they automatically split the monetisation of the video between you and the OC of the video being reacted to, of course depending on how much of the video is reaction.
It would incentivise reaction channels to have deeper and more dense reactions instead.
They already have content ID so they have the capability to do this, they just don’t for some reason.
It looks like DistroKid will get clearance.
I use Distrokid, have a LEGAL cover song license but my video STILL has a copyright claim for "Melody" in which they are refusing to release. It IS as complicated as all that and youtube is absolute TRASH in handling these issues
Let me clarify further, I don't have a syn license so noone is allowed to listen to my cover if its encoded as a "video" (which is dumb AF considering you cant see music anyway and I personally own all the video content)
Thank you for this. I researched copyright a couple of years ago and found exactly what you mentioned in the video, and realized I had several infringements. I deleted those videos and now only do original, public domain that I’ve arranged, or works that I can secure the permissions to. There is so much misinformation about copyright on TH-cam. Thanks again.
14 minutes long video containing 0 practical advice on how to actually publish a cover song properly. Bravo.
i found it very informative and helpful
Welcome to TH-cam idk how people like him can talk and say nothing at the same time
True what a waste of time
@@hypercept 9cents per view compared to a flat fee? Where in video does he say that
12:21 its here e.g. "we are the hits" though he waited until the very end to say it.
I was actually considering starting a channel where I cover songs… this helps a lot, thanks. I’m still stuck on a few things but I’ll do more research on this
When fairly big music TH-camrs do covers, are those licensed?
This was great! We just put out a cover of Like a Stone by Audioslave and thankfully it's still up. My drummer however just tried putting a drum cover up of a different song and completely got blocked. He's been scratching his head for the last few days so I'll forward this to him.
When you thought you're fine and here comes Damo with a reality check.
😂 I feel like I'm always the barer of bad news!
Haha! The truth hurts!
Andy Dion Hey Andy!! Didn’t expect to meet you here mate hahahaha
Damian Keyes we still love you. And we might remember you when our channel will suddenly shut down with all the hard work we’ve been doing over the years. Knowledge is everything.
RockWeller love Damien Keyes!
Thanks for posting this! Best information on cover songs I've seen so far! Will have to check out some of your other videos, seeing as I am a folk musician interested in uploading folk covers, as well as my own versions of traditional folk material...
Thanks so much, Damian. This is obviously a complex issue but you've explained everything very clearly. Great insight.
I have done a lot of covers in my time. It's something I have largely phased out, I still do the odd one from time to time as it is fun to play someone else's tune. I have only ever had one video/cover be blocked worldwide. (thankfully it never resulted in a strike and my copyright standing is still good). I used to only ever use karaoke tracks to sing over as I had no idea back then how to either record or create my own backing tracks lol. Thankfully things have changed 😂 9 out of 10 times if I'm ever going to do a cover I will record it live with a bit of piano. None of my covers since that change have been caught in the content ID, maybe I've just gotten lucky and they're all cool with it. I have noticed that more often than not at least in my case my videos are actually sharing the ad revenue, it must be some kind of deal some labels have came to with TH-cam or something.
Anyway, still love you videos Damian. I have learnt so much about the music industry from you as I'm still a bit of a newbie even after making my own music for 2 years. ❤️ 🦌
So basiclly if i dont have the money to pay to license company i cant upload covers? thats a bummer
Ikrr!
When there’s a will there’s a way.
What I don’t get, is some covers are completely different interpretations with similar notes but different. And those still get strikes. They’re killing music creativity, they’re claiming notes.
Thank you so much for making this content. It has been a huge struggle to find all this information in one spot to start a TH-cam channel from.
So I was about to start putting out weekly TH-cam cover videos, full production and all... in this new light, do you think that might be unwise or will it just require a bit more work?
I’ve been alternating uploads of originals and covers for a while, and with the covers, alternating whether it’s a live performance vid or a studio equipment recorded version that I have tried to make unique. A few have been claimed, a few haven’t. Not that I’m at the point of making money from TH-cam yet. Covers do perform a bit better though, as people actually search for them regularly. Gaining a little bit of awareness and subscribers is good enough for me to continue at the moment. Good video!
I'm in the same boat.
I'm in the same boat also.
How is going so far tho?
@@siyabongamngomezulu6208 It's going alright. I think I've done seven covers so far. I covered a Bruce Springsteen song from his latest album and it became my highest viewed and most liked video, and gained me at least three subscribers so far. That was about half a year ago. So I'd say it was worth the venture so far.
@@RickyVolk Woooow, congragts man, more life🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
thank you for simplifying this very complex topic, and specially for the updates on youtube. cheers!
We've done a cover without copyright strikes. What we made sure to do is that we licensed our cover (via DistroKid) before we decided to release the video that goes along with it. Glad that we got that sorted before we released it out in the world.
I have a couple of parodies and minor key covers of classic country songs that I've been wanting to release but have been afraid of legalities. This video was very helpful, thank you!!!
Thank you. Great video. I’ve needed clarification on this for a while. I’ve watched at least a dozen videos on this very subject. There is so much mis-information out there on this subject. My next question would be. Where would you recommend to go to to get licenses? Landr has a yearly fee that says that it will cover licensing, but I am ready to do tens of covers in the next year, will it still cover all of the songs? I was thinking that I could get everything basically mastered at the same time. Or would you recommend somewhere else? Budget is a factor and I am not monetized yet, but I see the potential of good covers assisting in that happening. I am a singer and violinist that would like to do some original sounding covers.
OH MY GOD.. I needed this video so long🙌🏼🙌🏼
It’s here 😊😊
Ooooof, this is overwhelming! We play a weekly live happy hour here on YT where we play jazz ish covers of all sorts of tunes (sort of like pmj) we do get copyright claims occasionally but never strikes... how can we approach getting rights to the songs if we don't even know what we gonna play till we play it online? I feel lile live streams are the new wild west these days and I am sure the big guys are looking for ways to monetize this as well
This is something I've been confused about for a lot of time. Thanks a lot Damo!
Glad to help 🤟😊
Me too. There were so many different tactics it seems.
I'm strapped in and ready.
Very informative and helpful; thanks for sharing this clarifying message with us. 🤩
I definitely needed this video recently 😂 after my latest cover got blocked by Sony. But after some research I found out the cover was actually allowed according to the publishers, so I contacted Sony & my video was unblocked!
A very wise and brave move there ey!
why lie on youtube? what's the point
Thanks! This explained a lot about copyright claims and it was easy to watch! Well worth sharing on Facebook group! Liked & Subscribed! Used to use Shazam all the time when I listened to the radio!
Helpful information. TH-cam copyright is a nightmare and the big music publishers are notoriously aggressive about their copyright. Good stuff, thanks.
Glad to help 🤟😊
I remember the good old days of the internet when it was the wild wild West baby the days of dial-up bbs's the days of downloading music now this was specially helpful if you lived in an area that didn't have a music store and not a lot of music stores around back then you know and a lot of radio station didn't play a certain song because of this jacket probably didn't like it I mean back then friend you was at the mercy of the disc jockey gods and it sucks until the internet which surpassed the world wide Web and to what we got now I can be out in the f****** woods man camping and tell my iPhone play ELO Don't break Me down and I can listen to that music streaming out there in the f****** woods as a matter of fact what the f*** am I doing in the woods anyway LOL but you see my point hey if I wanted to I can do a podcast straight from the woods while law enforcement trying to track me down and they might and that's just one of the many beneficial things you can do I mean come on man we was at the emergency at the radio station God's years ago I tried to get on the radio in my station manager said look here man you got $200 right now cash because he's all about that life he was all about that money he wouldn't f***** up about it and I told him no I don't have the money he's well I can't help you years later the internet came on the scene I did my first podcast on a MP3 stick uploaded to the internet I didn't have it in so I went to the library and did it I got pretty good at it then I started screaming once high-speed bandwidth came on the scene and then years later I called up that manager I said hey man around me kind of I said I'll ask you I need a show he's that's wait a minute I thought it was a note price ain't going up I said guess what I got my own show he said really what station he started to grab a pen scribble it down I said that's not a station in town that wants to hear s*** I got to say he said what I said my stations on the internet it goes out to the whole damn world and there's only one person you got one person one is better than anything either where can I find I said don't worry about it Google it and hung up on his ass
@@DamianKeyes So if I upload a cover of me singing an artist song, like literally using my own voice but using their bgm, if the artist is chill I'm not in trouble? If not Im gonna get copyright strike?
And what about shorts?
Fantastic video with tons of directly applicable info. I read a bunch of articles before finding this video and I wish I found this first. You covered everything I was looking for without forcing me to, you know, read ... like a caveman! ;) Well done, friend.
This topic has been on my mind. Perfect time for this video! 😍 Thanks!
Wooop woop! 😊😊😊
Y'know... I wonder how this would boil down if someone raised the fact that a cover is kind of a new master recording of the song. Because legally speaking there are always 2 sections of the copyright: Master and Publishing. Of course the artist would own the publishing since that is the actual song itself, but the label or artist would simply only own their copy of their master. Which means that if they're making money off of both the publishing AND what could be defined as MY master recording of the cover song, it's just as wrong as if I'm making money off of their publishing (their master excluded in this case since it's a new recording). Could be an interesting legal battle...
What about actually getting the permission before doing the cover? I know that there are services specializing in that. Have you used any, and do you have any tips on obtaining the right to cover before actually doing it?
This is SO important, thanks for the video Damian!
Not a problem - it is very important 😊
Thank you, you have answered my questions!
I've actually licensed two songs for covering and selling... Licenses are purchased at Harry Fox Agency...
Hi! which songs and how much was it?
Very informative and well presented . Thank you Damian .
do you recommend we are the hits? or just stick to TH-cam content idea (hit or miss?)
hope you reply! appreciate it in advance!
My band and I did a cover of a Beatles song that we posted on TH-cam. They stated that 30 seconds of my content had to be removed or the volume taken away from the video. I could have disputed it, but I was curious what the issue was, so in the end, they took out the first 30 seconds of the song and let the rest of that particular song play through. We played about 3 to 4 Beatles songs that were not cut, so I don't know why the first 30 seconds of the first song and not the others very strange.
Thanks! Helped a lot! :)
This video is really *on point* for me because I'm starting to release remixes on TH-cam to gain notoriety and got my first copyright claim and didn"t know what to think of it.
Much love and thank you Damian🌸
Thank's so much I hope this helps. Keep smashing it!
I mean what if it’s just on SoundCloud with no ads or money involved
There are some AWFUL covers on Spotify so I guess just get permission... I'm gonna... not decided what to cover yet though... 🤷
perfect video for my plans on the second half of 2020, thank you!
Glad to help 🤟😊
Perfect timing for this vid Damo! I recently had a guitar cover video of mine do really well, with people asking me to do more. The thing is I used the original track and played along to it, does it matter if I do that or should I re-create the whole backing track so that there's no mechanical rights violations? Or does it not matter either way?
Playing along to the original track exposes you to the risk of a copyright strike. Recreating someone else's track and playing along to it also exposes you to the risk of a copyright strike.
@Rickerby, The "sound recording" (i.e. from CD/mp3, samples, stems or backing/karaoke track) has a separate copyright from the "musical work" (song/composition). To use someone else's SR you need an additional "master use" license and a sync license (for video) in addition to the licenses for using the song/composition. Damien also mentioned yet another license is needed to print the lyrics. Changing the lyrics or adapting for another genre? You need still another license to create an arrangement/derivative work. You cannot get those through the convenience licensing services he mentions. You would need to contact the owner of the audio master recording (usually the label or distributor). TL;DR record your own tracks then you only need to deal with the copyright in the music work (song) with the composer/publisher. Then, check the catalogs of companies like "We Are The Hits" and upload your cover video through them to stay legit AND possibly share in the ad revenue that was going to be claimed anyway. If it takes off and you want to sell your audio recording on CD or downloads, then it's super easy to get compulsary mechanical licenses through "Easy Song Licensing" and others. IMHO, YMMV.
Hello Damian (or any other kind folks!) How does licensing actually prevent TH-cam from recognizing the song/backing track and demonetizing a video? I get that you can obtain permission, but how does that change the system's way of automatically copyright claiming the music?
Absolutely brilliant and informative stuff Damian 👌
So I understand, if I publish a tutorial it‘s fine, because educational use is fair use.
What if I publish an online course for sale (that includes song tutorials). what licence would I have to get?
And the industry wonders why it’s dying... covers used to be how bands cut their teeth and gained exposure... what will labels do when there are no new bands to profiteer from? I love music, I love the music scenes and genres... it is so sad to see 🙁🙁🙁
If journey didn't find a replacement ....then the group would not have performed around the world without Steve Perry. Guess where they got the replacement...from.TH-cam. There has to be a little leniency on these.
Great video, Damo! Always a question I have been asking myself!
Do you actually (still) recommend TH-cam covers within a strategy for artist promotion/ fan base building?
Best thing for you to do is get on DK-mba.com and get the up to date strategies 😊😊
Damian do you recommend that if someone releases an original song on TH-cam that they first get a formal copyright on the song before release? It used to be the thing to do but I am not sure if it is still important with all the volume of originals being posted. Thank You in advance for your answer! Cheers from Florida 🌴
I've uploaded covers and originals. I've had a few videos claimed, but they have generated some awareness, so it's a pretty good tradeoff. Good to know all of this though, I'll definitely look into using one of the licensing tools in the future
The more info you have, the better armed you are 😊
TH-cam used to have a searchable list where you could look to see an artist's or label's policy on sharing/covering their songs were.
Yeah sadly they recently took that away which is a shame
@@DamianKeyes too sad
@@DamianKeyes so sad.
Excellent clip Damian! Well explained!
Great video, as always. I "liked" it- in more ways than one LOL.
Question: Despite the end of the "wild west" and beginning of the "Brave New World", now that the industry has seemingly caught up- even though the law remains stuck in the last century. Is It still viable to grow a fanbase through covering current songs on the hit list of pop charts? Is this still the best means to that- fandom- end- or at least a worthwhile one? Or has this river run dry...
Thanks for this Damian. If you reach out to the publishers directly... what would a licence/permission look like? Is it a tangible formal document? Could there be a cost? Or is a letter/email granting permission enough? Or does it depend on which publisher you ask. Would be good to know your thoughts on pros and cons of using agency or publisher. Thanks
Man great explanation and so funny. Thanks a lot!!
Okay question; I’ve been to many concerts, and record their performance and then upload them here onto TH-cam, but they also get copyrighted claimed. But it’s the actual band singing their own song! I’m not looking to monetize off it or anything, just remove the claim. What should I do?
Super informative video! Thank you so much. I especially liked the part about Rick Beato using snippets of videos to demonstrate something he just explained. I wonder how he reacts to it if the video gets demonetized for that reason.
Yes Tina. I follow Rick's channel and this stuff actually really pisses him off. He has a good rant about it. He does great educational videos and gets this happening a lot!
He doesn't mind at all getting demonetised. He objects to getting his videos blocked or threatened with his channel being removed.
Rick has other revenue streams, such as his books and his royalties as a successful music producer. So he can survive a proportion of his instructional videos being demonetized. What he hates is them being blocked! All the time spent making them is wasted, and nobody gets to see them. So where is the next generation of musicians going to come from, if genuine fair use affordable education on TH-cam is stopped? He has testified to a Congressional Committee about this - the current law isn't working.
@@ianstobie it's such a farce!! Not looking great for the future of music from a creative standpoint. Let's see where this all goes from here.
Posting originals and renditions of traditional music is certainly easier than going through this juridical jungle. Thanks for shining some light on this, Damo!
well, Beatle songs start becoming copyright free in 2050
@@rickvornbrock8593and technically that's only songs that only written by John Lennon. 😅
OAC (Official Artist Channel) was TH-cam's answer to empower artists to deal with their own copyright claims (say someone made a cover of one of my songs), whilst taking a step back and let the hounds fight for the bones. It's a mixture of "hey, we're doing more for artists" and "hey, take it directly with the dude". Having said that, I have noticed it allows for greater opportunities and control over my own stuff. And that's always welcome!
I do a cover video every week and I do get claims fairly regularly(only had one blocked in US territories and no strikes), but I make sure that in the 6 week block that I record each time I have 2 songs at least that are public domain or my own work. I'm currently embroiled in an argument over "the parting glass" with Sony as they have decided that a 400 year old melody is no longer in the public domain....
Awesome information. Thanks for sharing. Have a wonderful weekend. 👌
Hey Damian, I've been a long time follower of your channel and your content really helps me out! Now this is a long question but an answer would go a long way :) I am preparing for my first album which I'm going to start releasing around December/January and while writing a song today, I wanted to use an audio clip from The Office (it's an American mockumentary sitcom television series if you didn't know) and I was just looking into copyright and fair use and I saw that laws are different in different countries. Would it be fine if I used one line out of the show for the audio in the song?
He's British, and The Office was orignally a Birtish sitcom which was later remade in America just FYI :)
There’s important things to note here: The actual royalty payments are not that expensive especially if you’re a small artist going through Harry Fox or Easy Song Licensing (because you pay by number of streams/downloads/physical releases, etc) but the fees are atrocious. I believe HFA had an $80 processing fee - on each medium for release! That’s a lot for an artist just trying to get off the ground. My band released a 5 song cover EP, and I paid close to $300 for just licensing which wiped out the band budget, but it would’ve probably been close to $60 without the fees. Are there any options with less in the way of fees? I’m all about artists getting paid for their work, but the copyright holders aren’t getting that money anyway.
Hey did you find a solution yet?
I just basically asked, posted the same thing.
F for update
Distrokid
Following
So i think i will avoid covers for the rest of my career as much as it sucks, I feel its not worth paying some rich label head to play a song i like. I will just create my own music and still get sued for someone copyrighting all 12 tones of the musical dictionary as well as all scales chords and rhythms possible in western music lmfao thanks for the heads up man i was literally about to upload a cover tomorrow...but you totally changed my mind on that.
If you're already done, upload it. Strikes are unlikely. Claims are fine I already have had one, and I have let the revenue go(which is nothing anyway). I wish revenue sharing was there more often tho'
mix in eastern music
Exactly how I feel. I thought music was made to be enjoyed by others. That includes praising the original artist/songwriter, singing said song and performing said song. We all learn and grow from one another as instrumentalists and singers. Absolute credit monetary and otherwise to be given to the wonderful songwriters and artists.. not disputing that. Just the difficult process in getting things accomplished legally and in a quick manner. I'm sure using my loop library in logic pro x will not be ok either. So frustrated.
@@pattyspeedmusic I thought so too. However there are still music out there that was made to be enjoyed, not necessarily to be profited from. Big businesses just blurred the line between them but such music does exist
How do I thank you enough for this video! God bless you sir!
Well done Damian!
Just asked about this on DK MBA last week! Thanks for this vid 🙏 !!!
Haha yep you inspired the vid! 😊😊
😎 I feel honored
Compulsory “mechanical” licenses (not needing to ask permission in advance, just pay the appropriate “statutory” royalty rate to the rights holder) have existed for a long time for audio-only recordings. It’s “synchronization” to film or video that requires advance permission negotiated directly with the rights holder, and still does.
The key differences between mechanical and sync licenses:
- “mechanical” (for audio-only uses like records, CDs, streaming): no need to get advance permission or negotiate a rate. There is a “statutory” rate per song or minute of use set by law that you need to pay to the rights holder to use the composition, and it is a “compulsory” license - the rights holder cannot refuse you that permission.
- “synchronization” (to film or video): there is no compulsory license or statutory rate. You need to ask advance permission and negotiate the rate directly with the rights holder.
In the past, making a film or video or TV show, at least one that many people might see and that might be sold or supported by ads, was a big, expensive deal. “Clearing” all the rights first was just part of the expected production process and budget. What cell phones/cheap hd cameras, cheap video editing software, the internet, streaming, and social media/discovery sites like TH-cam have done is make it trivially easy for anyone to create and share videos with huge audiences - and the creators are unlikely to have the time, team or budget to clear licenses, or even know that they are legally required to do so.
But the copyright laws regarding getting a sync license have not changed despite the change in technology. What TH-cam and Facebook do with ContentID is a compromise negotiated with major rights holders to allow them to let users bypass getting a sync license in exchange for some tools the rights holders can use to monetize or block the content without invoking legal remedies. How ContentID, monetization, and blocking work is outside of copyright law, it’s just a business agreement between large corporations to avoid mass lawsuits and mass bans of infringing users. But it has a lot of problems, like mistakenly identifying new performances of public domain works (or even hours of white noise) as infringing, and a total inability to identify and allow for fair use. On the one hand, there is still tons of infringing content, not all of which is monetized or blocked. On the other hand, true fair use (which should not even be monetized by the rights holder) is dying at the hands of unthinking bots and low-level employees. Also, to have a monetization option but occasionally get blocked entirely seems contrary to the fundamental goals of copyright and the prevailing use in audio-only recordings.
It seems that copyright law should enact a new compulsory sync license to better meet today’s reality. Then songs would never get blocked, only monetized, the monetization rate would be known in advance (though probably a percent of associated revenues relative to the length of use as a proportion of the entire video would make more sense than a flat cost per use), and nobody would be in violation for not having negotiated advance permission. (But automated misidentification of public domain works and fair use could remain a problem.)
Fair use was also always a thing written into copyright law, such as for reviews, commentary, satire, and certain educational uses of excerpts. What Rick Beato does, for instance, is clearly always 100% fair use, as would be a few seconds of a song on a tv in the background while taking a video of your kid, just as was “Siskel and Ebert At the Movies” (though it’s quite likely even they received advance permission to air the clips in that show, and were careful to give proper on-screen copyright credit to the rights holders). Reaction videos not so much - playing an entire song as the focus of a video with only minimal analysis and commentary likely does not fall under fair use, and neither do most cellphone videos of live concerts. Even Leland Sklar playing along to bass lines he originally performed is also likely not fair use (it’s a cover performance), so unless he was the sole copyright holder of that entire composition (unlikely), he can be monetized or blocked (or sued) unless he gets permission from the rights holder.
According to at least one US federal appeals court, fair use is supposed to be a right in itself that should not be violated. In other words, rather than just being an affirmative defense in case of being sued, according to this appeals court decision, clear examples of fair use should protect someone from being sued in the first place. In other words, it may be against the law for someone to even try to deprive you of your fair use rights. But again, ContentID etc. are contractual agreements between corporations and not really embodiments of copyright law directly. This question of whether blocking or monetizing a video that is clearly fair use is itself an illegal act has not been tested in court that I am aware of.
I had an interesting one on my Cliffs of Dover video (uploaded before I was aware of all the procedure)
It is currently a 'partial copyright claim' and I'm still earning money from it - to be fair I haven't researched this but would be interested to see if anyone knows about this?
Thank you. It helps me a lot.👍🙏💚🇲🇨
Thank you! Distro kid claims they can help with a licence for covers. Do you think it is legit and can also be a way to legally put out a cover?
If you have an original song and by some chance, TH-cam detects that it sounds similar to a song (from another country) which you have never known or heard of, does that mean, tough luck, change that part of your song, or is it worth disputing it because it's your original song? I'm not talking about sampling a part of another song and using it but just coincidentally sounding similar to a copyrighted song. Any thoughts?
Is it considered a copyright strike if you're just playing the song on an instrument but not over the track itself? For example, the audience only hears you doing a drum cover but you hear the song in your headphones.
Damien, I do have a question. Let's suppose one obtains the required licenses for a TH-cam cover (sync license) - either through one of those agencies or directly by publisher. That will typically NOT prevent the automatic music recognition bots from identifying your cover as being owned by copyright holder. And I assume this will then automatically result in either the 'de monitized' or 'blocked' or 'copyright strike' notifications. In this case, you have legal right to make the cover, and you would be forced then to have to prove this. This must be a common situation. Can you make a video that discusses this situation and the process of making an 'appeal'?
“Am I cool or am I cool”, literally got you a like on this video. 🍻
I've uploaded just 3 cover songs, more like playthroughs over the original recording. I've got the regular copyright claim on two, but the videos are still there. At least I got a bit more traffic to my channel. On the other song, I guess I didn't get a claim cause they are not that known and they've split up many years ago.
The basic fundamental building blocks of a song is not copyright protected. C-G-Am-F with watever ever key is not copyright protected as it is a fundamental building block chord progression. Thousands if not millions of songs use this basic chord progression. It is not copyrightable and fair game.
Great info sir, but what about if I create an instrumental beat of a song, can post it on TH-cam, let alone distribute it on streaming platforms. If yes, then what are the right ways for it. I'm really struggling with this sir, please help me out with this one.
I did change the track, but why I still got copyright claim?
Damian there used to be a list on TH-cam that told you which tracks allowed covers - a list publish by TH-cam listing the most common tracks with details from the publisher on what is allowed. I can't find the link.Does it still exist, do you know? John Gubba PS: We met when you spoke at a business expo in Telford. a couple of years ago.
In order to obtain a license to use audio from a movie dialogue to put in my original song does that fall under a mechanical license? Thanks
I have just made my own beat of a song and I downloaded a the artist singing the lyrics of the song and explaining the meaning behind it.
I then turned it into a wav, chopped it up and added some reverb and layered it on the beat that I just made.
I also used the official music video as visuals. Can I still own all of my monetizations?
Thanks a lot for the information, i guess this also applies to the case when i want to upload some guitar improvisation over a licensed song?
That was a damn good explanation. I'm still left wondering how DJs do it. It seems they can do whole sets and TH-cam automatically detects and indicates the names of the tracks in the comments. And isn't there a youtube-organized scheme where you can do a cover and the artist automatically gets a share? Also: what about jazz tunes? Say Miles Davis, released from 50s to 90s at least? Jazz is about interpretation, so it seems weird I can't do jazz covers. Is there a list of artists who don't care and say it?
Once a copyright claim is put on a video, what happens if I just delete that video?
A few years ago I was thinking about doing a cover on TH-cam, and I discovered that TH-cam had made arrangements with some publishers so that if you did a cover of one of their songs you would automatically share revenue. Or rather, that's what I recall, which isn't necessarily correct. However, I also recall that I successfully found a list of these publishers and found that the relevant publisher for my project was on that list. I didn't go through with the project at that time, but a few months ago I went looking again and found no trace of this mythical list or any official documentation from TH-cam regarding any such licensing. Was this all my imagination, or did things change?
Did this cover "composition" licenses?
So in a simple short answer do you need permission or a license to cover a song? How much usually do you pay for it
Will publishers actually write back to you, if you contact them?
I have my originals administered by CDBaby Pro, and they submit copyright claims (though not strikes) against me when I post my songs on YT.
"Back in the day (which was a Wednesday)..."