YouTube expands music licensing options

On September 20th, YouTube announced some big changes for the platform relating to music on their blog. Here is everything you need to know:

1. YouTube Shorts will pay music rights holders
2. Music rights holders will be able to sell licenses to use music on youtube directly
3. Music rights holders will be able to accept a partial cut of monetization on videos. Previously, it was either you take all or nothing

YouTube Shorts is about to start paying music rights holders. Eligible Shorts Creators will still receive a portion of proceeds from advertising, but only after a 30% cut has been given to the rights holders. The remaining 70% is split 50:50 between Youtube and the short's creators. Rolling out in beta to select countries, this catalog of music will allow creators to buy licensing rights to the music for use in YouTube videos without the usual hassle.

Previously, copyright holders would have to manually approve authorized videos using the content ID system in order to let video creators monetize songs containing copyrighted music. The content ID system manually flags down any usage of copyrighted materials and grants rights holders full monetization of offending videos but is impractical for rights holders who wish to license songs to others because it requires manual verification. Because of this all-or-nothing system, YouTuber Creators would usually rather avoid using licensed music altogether than deal with the content ID system. With this change, music rights holders will have the opportunity to be paid for licensing their work automatically, either via a one-time upfront payment or a permanent % of video royalties. A single successful video on youtube can net thousands of dollars a month in advertising revenue, so this opens up the opportunity for rights holders to receive large royalties that would previously not be easy to manage.

Read more on YouTube's blog: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/supporting-the-next-wave-of-creative-entrepreneurs/