Are there issues with using copyrighted music for a robot reveal? What if the video was posted on YouTube?
So long as you don’t monetize it and properly credit the song we have never had any issues except for one of our videos not being allowed to play in Germany.
What does “monetize” mean?
So when you post a youtube video you can “monetize” it meaning you put ads on it and make money. So long as you don’t do that you should be fine with whatever song you put on the video.
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When I uploaded a video with copyrighted music in it (I did not monetize it), YouTube flagged it as copyright and blocked it, but all I had to do to unblock it was assign revenues to the copyright holder (Disney in this case). Then it was fine.
I think copyrighted music does create problems for shows like FUN or FIRST Canada Live who want to show your video, because they have to mute it.
This came up in the FUN Discord a couple months back so I’ll share what I basically wrote there:
I think there’s a big misconception of what can and can’t be done in regards to music specifically on YouTube. There’s pretty much 3 levels of music specifically for YouTube (this is a gross generalization, I’m not a music/copyright lawyer but I have some pretty good experience on this).
TL:DR There’s what is practical (below) and some things that are technically correct.
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Music that is free and clear (or not detected by YT). Nothing Happens. Sometimes it gets flagged later and sometimes it’s flagged by a bot that is not even on behalf of the artist and just trying to claim ad $ falsely.
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Music that is detected by YT and then monetized by the artist (this is the most common): Your video will have ads put on it of which the $ goes to the artist . For those who are YT Partners some music now has split monetization.
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Music that is blocked: The video will be blocked and not show on YT. Sometimes this is only blocked for specific countries (example: UMG tends to block in Russia and Belarus) of which you are probably fine unless you specifically want your video to show in those markets.
If you ever want to test a very easy way is to just upload something random with the song to YT. See what happens or search for that song especially ones that are not official like lyrics on screen. The majority of popular music will be detected immediately and YT will tell you. The image is an example of an upload we did of Premiere Night Finale teams. In this case FUN does not receive any Ad Revenue from this video and you can see that YouTube automatically attributed the music here.
It’s like this because essentially YT is doing the legwork of working out licensing agreements on your behalf.
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Does it make any difference if the video is unlisted?
Yes. If you want to use copyright music, you need a license to the music. If you don’t and post it to YouTube, then there are two most likely things to happen: (1) the copyright owner asks YouTube to take down your video and you get a “copyright strike”, (2) (most likely) the copyright owner “claims” your video and monetizes it (so they get any revenue from ads).
In theory, the copyright owner could sue you for copyright infringement, but that’s really not very likely over a robot reveal video.
Content ID (YT’s detector) should scan all videos no matter of the listing status.
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From what I’ve experienced it’s part of the upload process and will give you a warning after the video is done processing.
This isn’t dependent on public, unlisted or private.
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Just want to give a couple other examples: I don’t have any content that is full blocked or taken down (we wouldn’t use that on YT) but here’s what a video in YouTube studio would look like that is Copyright restricted, partially blocked in some countries and has shared revenue:
Shared Revenue (artist has a deal on YT to split revenue with YT Partners):
Completely Monetized (artist has a deal on YT to allow it’s music to be played but they receive 100% of ad revenue):
Monetized and Blocked in some countries (artist has a deal on YT to allow it’s music to be played in certain countries. Other countries cannot view and ones that can the artist/label received 100% of ad revenue):
Here’s an example of a video that we have purchased music usage/rights for and are generating YT ad revenue:
Many times yes, but see my point #1
Also if you look at my shared revenue video area, you can attribute artists manually yourself.
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This is helpful information. A lot of YouTube systems feel like a “black box” if you’re not already familiar with them.
I also just realized that the Public icon is supposed to be a globe/the Earth. I’ve always seen it as some kind of strange BJT symbol.
This has happened to our church service several times. Even though we only use music from free sources, from providers that give rights to it. The pastor protests the flag, and eventually it gets cleared. It’s apparent that there are bots that scan YouTube and take hits on anything, because if they get 1 in 1000 right they get some kind of “finder’s fee”.
There are some bands well known for taking down any video with their music in it (even when it is very arguably a fair use like a small snippet used for commentary and critique). So avoid them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eofD6bZ0m4
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