YouTube Content ID and Music Clearance 

Thanks for watching Russell. They're all over, from your local pub (for you that's a drive!), to SoundCloud and Instagram. The key I think is how to contact them... I find that most will respond via Instagram messenger. It's hit and miss with trying to contact them through SoundCloud. However, most indie artists that are actively trying to promote their music will be responsive through at least one of their social portals, whether it's Twitter or Facebook. Yeah, you've got to track them down once you find them :-)

@@OffbeatBryce Good point. If the Content ID catches your video using a song from one of these record labels you'll be flagged, but if RU-vid has an agreement with the label everything is handled automatically and you simply won't be able to monetize your video. The ads run on your video now pay the copyright holder, the label. Also, just to be clear, as I understand it, there's no sync license fee involved, just the ad revenue stream. If there were a sync fee involved, such as there is with television and film, the content creator is paying the copyright holder for the permission to sync their music to picture. RU-vid is uses a different model.

@@OffbeatBryce I double checked the articles and also read the new Facebook story on what they've negotiated. I think there are two layers going on here. First, a publishing company like Warner Chappell says, okay your users can use our music but we need to get paid... how are they getting paid? Layer one, from a news story, "Under the deal, Warner and RU-vid will share revenue from advertising that appears around the music videos when they are played." This is simple, it's monetization. You can't monetize a video that uses somebody else's copyright protected music. The second layer, and here's where I'm taking an educated guess, is some sort of sync license based on the publisher's catalog. There are no details on how this is structured this in any of the articles that I could find. In any case, due to the number of songs we're talking about this is not a traditional sync fee like what we see in the film/TV world. It's something else, like a blanket license fee, or based on some percentage. But I guess it could still be referred to as a sync fee. However, when we negotiate a sync fee in the film/TV world it ranges from a few hundred to thousands of dollars paid by the film/TV producer to the songwriter/publisher. Obviously, RU-vid users aren't paying this type of sync fee to Warner Chappell when they use one of their songs. So yeah, I guess there's sync fees and there's this other type of sync license fee that a company like Warner Chappell has negotiated with RU-vid in order to allow youtubers to "sync" Warner's copy protected music catalog. So yeah, two layers here, the right to monetize and the right to use the copy protected music.

Really great point. Thanks for the tip and thanks for watching.

You're welcome. Thanks for watching and commenting. Much appreciated!

I'm not an attorney but... in theory you should be able to post your cover songs without monetization. If they get pulled or monetized by the copyright holder that's their call. If you want to license your covers for commercial release, I suggest this company, www.easysonglicensing.com/

@@ErikHawk Awesome, thank you so much! I'll look into that

I've seen other RU-vidrs do this: 1) Credit the artist/song in your video and in your video's text description. 2) DO NOT monetize your video. The music's copyright holder will monetize your video. As I understand it, you'll still get a copyright flag on your video but you shouldn't receive a copyright strike. Some artists will allow you to use their music while others do not. You'll know when you receive the copyright flag for the song(s). Good luck.

If the content ID is in error and the material is your music then you need to dispute the claim. You can do this through the link on the copyright claims page of your RU-vid profile.

That really sucks, sorry. I've heard of situations like this where the only recourse is to get an attorney. Good luck.

@@ErikHawk I followed the case and it seems my distributor was the negligent one not letting me know of the counterclaim during the prescribed period and that's how it got uplifted. They give about 10 days to accept or deny a counterclaim. I've relaunched the takedown via my Official Artist Account and the videos got taken down. I also will be revoking my content ID license from my distributor because they're not vigilant. I want to use a third party DRM. I need advice on the best one. So far identifyy has so many bad reviews.

@@ginsu_pd I tested CD Baby in this video and they were on top of it! I'm sure that smaller distributors would be slower to respond. Good luck!

@@ErikHawk thank you