You’re probably wondering what would happen if you made a video with music and put it up on YouTube. Would you wake up the next morning and find it gone? Well, there is no easy answer to that question. I myself have had one YouTube account closed and to this day have no idea why.
What I’m trying to say is this. You can rationalize anything that you do as being legal, but anytime you deal with a third party site (one that you don’t own) expect things that you wouldn’t expect because they happen. When you don’t have control of the site, you can never be totally sure.
Having said that, within reason, what follows is a pretty good idea of what you can expect when putting music videos up on YouTube. Please understand that your mileage may vary greatly.
Before we get into royalty free music specifically, let’s talk about music in general.
There are actually only a few reasons why a YouTube video will be removed.
1) Terms Of Service Violation – This actually has nothing to do with the music itself. A TOS violation means that the video had some kind of nudity, language or violence issue that was against YouTube’s terms of service. If that’s the case, the music in the video could very well be yours, written by you and even known to be written by you. Doesn’t matter. If you violate their TOS, the video will come down, period.
2) Content ID Match – Videos are removed that come up as a content ID match. YouTube has some kind of software that actually surfs their site and if it sees two identical videos and the original, made by the creator, has a copyright on it, the duplicate video will be removed. This is done automatically and will display on your “My Videos” page informing you that your video has been removed and why.
Now there is an exception to this but it’s up to the copyright owner. He can, should he choose to as an alternative to having the video removed, block it (prevent it from being seen), track it or monetize it. By the last one that means putting ads around it in an attempt to get money from each time his video is shown on your YouTube channel.
This is why, in many cases, you will see duplicate videos from the original and the duplicates, when they start playing, will have all these ads displayed over the video itself. That is the copyright owner trying to monetize your use of his work.
3) DMCA Takedown Notice – This is when the copyright owner of the video (doesn’t even have to be on YouTube) sends YouTube a DMCA takedown notice claiming to hold the original copyright (they have to prove this) and YouTube will then immediately remove the video. These notices usually come from big music companies. Some are more tolerant than others. Some will not allow under any uncertain terms their video displayed on YouTube. This is usually because of fear of loss of income from CD sales and the like.
Here is what you need to know about these notices. When YouTube gets one for a video that you put up, you get a strike against your account. Once you get three strikes YouTube will remove all your accounts and videos and ban you for life.
No, they are not fooling around. This is some serious stuff.
Okay, so how does all this relate to royalty free music? Well, this is where things get tricky. If you’ve read one of my earlier articles where I explained about Creative Commons and how royalty free music can later be copyrighted itself, you can probably see how this can get ugly.
Let’s take this scenario.
Say John Doe creates a piece of royalty free music and he puts it up on his site for anybody to purchase. He does not have a Creative Commons license so anybody, after purchasing the track, can do anything they like with it.
Within the span of one week, two people buy this track. The first person to buy it (yes, this is important) is Jim Smith. The second person to buy it is Hank Walker.
Jim Smith creates a video with this music and puts it up on YouTube. But before he does that, he gets a Creative Commons license for both the video and the music itself saying that the video and music can be used for non-commercial use only.
A week later, Hank Walker makes his own video but uses the same music. The video is different but the music is exactly the same.
Hank then uploads the video to YouTube.
Because the videos themselves are different, YouTube doesn’t see this as duplicate content. However, Jim Smith happens to find out about the video, views it, hears it’s the same song and notifies YouTube while sending them the Creative Commons license.
Now, as to whether or not YouTube will see this as duplicate content or a copyright violation is anybody’s guess especially since the original writer of the music is John Doe. See, this is where things get dicey.
If YouTube chooses to do nothing, Jim Smith still has legal recourse through Creative Commons. How far he’ll get is anybody’s guess as Creative Commons was created to encourage the free exchange of ideas.
In the end, will Hank Walker’s video be taken down? Will he be sued? It’s probably unlikely due to this involving royalty free music. But it can happen.
Does that mean it’s not safe to purchase royalty free music? Not at all. Look at all the things that had to go wrong for Hank Walker in order for the above scenario to play out this way.
He and somebody else had to both buy the same music with the other person buying it and copyright it before him. This person then would have had to put the video up on YouTube as well. And the person would have to find out about Hank Walker’s video which he wouldn’t have found out through YouTube because it wouldn’t have been seen as duplicate content.
And on top of all that, Jim Smith would have to be making money from the video in order for it to pay to even come after Hank Walker legally.
So, in short, purchasing royalty free music is a pretty safe investment.
As it should be.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim