User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri Apr 15, 2022 11:34 am

What an interesting morning this has been.

Last night I uploaded the 1st video I've completed in 4 months to YouTube, Unlisted. I was going to publish it this morning after "doing all the things" in YT Studio to get the table of contents in there, update the description, create a video thumbnail, etc.

Anyway, I'm starting to work on it and see a button/alert I've never seen before saying I had 3 copyright claims that would prevent it from being monetizable (which none of my videos are, unless YT puts ads on them themselves, for themselves). I could still publicize it, but it would be removed from ever making any cash in the future. Even though none of my videos ever make me a single penny, it's the whole fear of never making anything off them some day - even if that's not a personal goal.

The way monetization works on YouTube is kind of interesting. They create several bars you have to jump over to be eligible.
Screen Shot 2022-04-15 at 11.18.34 AM.png
The one I've never jumped over is for the public watch hours. I've always hovered at around the ½-way mark. If I tried to pump videos out more regularly and really focus on subscriber growth, that would probably become a green checkmark some day. And then, oh boy, I can only imagine the copper pennies that would rain down all over me at that stage. ;) I'm not trying to fool myself. I make them because I enjoy it, not for personal gain and wealth.

Yeah, so that's never been a focus of mine. But I don't want to cut off that potential. You know what I mean?

So, I investigate.

It appears the artist - who gave me permission to use his songs - has used a management business called TuneCore, owned by Believe. TuneCore is a "digital music distribution, publishing and licensing service," and they now claim copyright holdings over his music. The only way around this, it seems, is if they give me permission to use his songs even though the musician himself did so explicitly in the past. They'll have to whitelist me somehow. This is all automated so trying to navigate things is like blowing into the wind.

The musician - whom I've contacted - is baffled. And, the dispute could take up to 30 days to resolve! My fear is every time I upload a new video going forward I will have to go through this all over again each time. So I think I'm going to actually strip his 3 songs out and simply admit defeat and, sadly, never have his tunes in my videos going forward.

Totally sucks as I love using his music and evangelizing it to my subscribers, which I always promote in my video descriptions with links to his albums on Bandcamp.

What a bummer.

User avatar
BloodyCactus
Lexington VA

Posted Fri Apr 15, 2022 2:11 pm

My kids like to upload stuff and I've told them to only ever use the songs from youtubes free catalog they give you and nothing else. There is very little recourse + arbitration its all done by a bot and you cant argue with a bot!


https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary

Sorry to hear your having problems but at least it was proactive, I've only ever heard it be reactive by youtube!





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