The rights around the music on your video on YouTube have been a little muddy for publishers and content creators for a while.
You may find that you can upload a video with whatever song you want on it one day, only to find it has been removed from YouTube for violating copyright the following day. This is, as it should be of course, as the creator of the music stands to gain very little from this.
But, as of today, YouTube announced details of a new agreement that has been reached with a number of music publishers, including BMG Rights Management, Christian Copyright Solutions, ABKCO Music, Inc. and Songs Music Publishing.
Under this new deal, YouTube will work collaboratively with the music publishers, bringing them under YouTube’s Content ID Programme which gives music creators a share in ad revenue.
This means, that if you use any song from these publishers (who represent the likes of Adele and the Rolling Stones), you will be permitted to do so with ads now appearing on your video. YouTube is already running this with a number of organisations, and this is not a brand new policy for them, but with the addition of these publishing groups, it has massively opened up lots of new opportunities to video publishers to use the music they want, while the artists, and ultimately YouTube, benefit from this financially.
