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OT How Difficult is it to License a Cover Song for Youtube?


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the other day I thought it would be fun to do a cover of Green Onions and post it on Youtube for my friends to see. Realized after I made it that there are a bunch of legal hoops to jump through to post something like that or your channel can get flagged/taken down. Just wondered if anyone had experience in this field and is it worth it? I just want to have fun and post a song I enjoy. I play covers in bars (or did before the covid) and we aren't expected to register sync/mechanical licenses for that, or are we?

 

I wonder if many people just upload covers without going through the licensing hoops and hope it won't get flagged. It seems foolish to go that route but I can see having that mindset especially if you aren't a big name.

 

I ended up just putting the cover i made on my FB page. It was still fun but got me thinking.

dreamcommander.bandcamp.com

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Licensing is easy if the song is available for licensing - not all of them are...and sometimes, there are cover songs that YouTube just will not let you post.

 

They've never asked me for a license, so I don't know how that's determined.

 

I do most of my licensing with Harry Fox Agency's Songfile.

 

dB

:snax:

 

:keys:==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <==:rawk:

 

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Licensing is easy if the song is available for licensing - not all of them are...and sometimes, there are cover songs that YouTube just will not let you post.

 

They've never asked me for a license, so I don't know how that's determined.

 

I do most of my licensing with Harry Fox Agency's Songfile.

 

dB

 

oh, good to know! is it expensive?

dreamcommander.bandcamp.com

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Sorry but this does not apply to video. The license HFA can issue is a mechanical liscense for using the music like recording and distributing a cover. But when you put it to video it requires a Sync license, which HFA does not cover. That has to be negotiated directly with the artist. Good luck.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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Some artists just put ads on your stuff to get income, others stick it to you and you get a strike from YouTube, I think I'm at 2 out of 3 strikes right now as far as my account getting suspended for posting videos of my band playing covers. Don't try doing a supertramp cover, I can tell you that much.

 

If you want to make a reasonable guess what the response will be, start by searching for the song on YouTube. If there are other covers out there, your probably safe, if you can't find it, run away.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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Some artists just put ads on your stuff to get income, others stick it to you and you get a strike from YouTube, I think I'm at 2 out of 3 strikes right now as far as my account getting suspended for posting videos of my band playing covers. Don't try doing a supertramp cover, I can tell you that much.

 

If you want to make a reasonable guess what the response will be, start by searching for the song on YouTube. If there are other covers out there, your probably safe, if you can't find it, run away.

 

very practical advice. thank you.

dreamcommander.bandcamp.com

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Some artists just put ads on your stuff to get income, others stick it to you and you get a strike from YouTube.

 

Yep, Dan's on the money here. I'm posting covers all the time - just did one today - and the artist in question simply puts a copyright claim on the video, which means it's impossible for our band to monetise the video (but the original artist can). Not all original artists are this easy going.

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I'd bet that song is not blocked.

 

Interesting video from Rick Beato on blocking......

 

tough to say.... I watched the video link. Interesting stuff. It sounds like he just posts stuff expecting it to get demonitized/blocked. And if it doesn't it doesn't. That's one approach.

dreamcommander.bandcamp.com

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I have used commercial music as well as posted covers on Youtube, and their automatic process actually works quite well. If the original composer doesn't allow this use, YT will let you know. Otherwise they will automatically add ads to pay the copyright owners (and stop you from getting any payouts). Seems fair.

Rock bottom bass

Fakebook Pro Sheet Music Reader - at every gig!

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Dan, I heard/read the YT strikes expire after some time has passed. True?

 

 

Don't know, haven't checked. If so then I may not have any because I haven't gotten one in several years now.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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so basically if you want to post a legit cover you have to spend time/money on mechanical and sync licensing (not worth it). Or you can just say "eff it" and post it hoping that the copyright holder is cool with it and will take their cut. But if you post it and they are not cool with it, you risk threatening the status of your Youtube page. pretty all over the map.

 

I guess with the strike system it's worth it for some folks to play around around and post things to potentially see what happens.

dreamcommander.bandcamp.com

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Licensing is easy if the song is available for licensing - not all of them are...and sometimes, there are cover songs that YouTube just will not let you post.

 

They've never asked me for a license, so I don't know how that's determined.

 

I do most of my licensing with Harry Fox Agency's Songfile.

 

oh, good to know! is it expensive?

Not really, no. Mechanical licensing for digital distribution is about 1/3 of the mechanical licensing for CDs.

 

dB

:snax:

 

:keys:==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <==:rawk:

 

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Some artists just put ads on your stuff to get income, others stick it to you and you get a strike from YouTube.

 

Yep, Dan's on the money here. I'm posting covers all the time - just did one today - and the artist in question simply puts a copyright claim on the video, which means it's impossible for our band to monetise the video (but the original artist can). Not all original artists are this easy going.

 

I have used commercial music as well as posted covers on Youtube, and their automatic process actually works quite well. If the original composer doesn't allow this use, YT will let you know. Otherwise they will automatically add ads to pay the copyright owners (and stop you from getting any payouts). Seems fair.

 

For my personal experience this is what could happen.

 

Stefano

My band: www.tupamaros.it - Our music: https://tupamaros-it.bandcamp.com/

 

Galanti Accordion + Voicelive Play | Roland FA-07 | GSI Gemini Rack | MIDI Drawbars controller (custom made) | IK Multimedia UNO Synth Pro 

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Update. I went ahead and uploaded my cover. Youtube put a Content ID claim on it. No copyright strikes but it is demonetized. I'm okay with that result. As far as I know I'm in legal compliance.

 

This way seems easier than securing licenses. I'm not in a hurry to upload more covers but at least for some (if not many) songs it can be done with no real consequence to your channel. I'm sure there are other copyright holders who are more stringent with use of their material. I'll probably stick to posting covers of lesser known or older blues artists/composers.

dreamcommander.bandcamp.com

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If you use Distrokid (who can put your song up on youtube along with pretty much whatever other streaming services you want), they will handle the cover song licenses, it's not expensive.

 

https://distrokid.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013648953-Can-I-Upload-Cover-Songs-

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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If you use Distrokid (who can put your song up on youtube along with pretty much whatever other streaming services you want), they will handle the cover song licenses, it's not expensive.

 

https://distrokid.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013648953-Can-I-Upload-Cover-Songs-

 

Agreed but just a heads-up on Distrokid at present. I've signed up and am now 10 days into waiting for my songs to be uploaded to stores, with zero communication on why the delay. Am on the verge of requesting a refund and going elsewhere.....

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Just an update - now 12 days and seeing a lot of unhappy people who've been waiting 2-3 weeks. I'm wondering if they are having issues. I've aborted my upload, requested a refund and gone with TuneCore. You get what you pay for I guess....
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  • 4 months later...
Some artists just put ads on your stuff to get income, others stick it to you and you get a strike from YouTube.

 

Yep, Dan's on the money here. I'm posting covers all the time - just did one today - and the artist in question simply puts a copyright claim on the video, which means it's impossible for our band to monetise the video (but the original artist can). Not all original artists are this easy going.

 

Reviving this as today I had a very short excerpt of a cover blocked. Never happened to me before with this artist and I've posted plenty of their work on YouTube - as noted above.

 

I lodged a dispute. I don't dispute the copyright claim, just the inconsistency of the treatment. Don't really have a leg to stand on as they can do as they please, however we'll see if asking nicely to have the block removed works. The 5 people that regularly view my videos are going to be massively disappointed if they don't get to see it, after all...

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Reviving this as today I had a very short excerpt of a cover blocked. Never happened to me before with this artist and I've posted plenty of their work on YouTube - as noted above.

 

I lodged a dispute. I don't dispute the copyright claim, just the inconsistency of the treatment.

I'd have been hesitant to file the dispute. If someone there does indeed take note of the inconsistency, rather than approving your new video, it seems to me they could just as easily take down all the other ones where you used that artist's work!

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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I'm not a cover channel, so I've never looked into these things for myself. However, I've seen many posts on YouTube's official forum about the subject. There are thousands of complaints and unanswered questions on the matter. You upload a cover without any type of license and nothing happens. Someone else does a similar cover and gets blocked or even receives a strike. Sometimes the whole year goes by without a problem and then all of a sudden people wake up to a terminated channel without warning, because multiple strikes were issued overnight. Apparently YouTube's content ID is not exactly a consistent automated solution to clear the confusion.

 

I only upload original compositions or pieces that are public domain and still receive copyright claims from time to time. Last time, I received multiple copyright claims for Brahms Rhapsody within minutes. I file the dispute of course, and eventually they get removed, but still I don't understand what is it they're claiming exactly?

www.youtube.com/c/InTheMixReviews
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don't take it personal.;)

 

YT and SoundCloud have detection algorhythms that pin down musicians recording, etc , where licenses and permissions are required.

 

these systemic tools are not binary, not perfect, but they are getting better at ' scraping ' music content.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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Reviving this as today I had a very short excerpt of a cover blocked. Never happened to me before with this artist and I've posted plenty of their work on YouTube - as noted above.

 

I lodged a dispute. I don't dispute the copyright claim, just the inconsistency of the treatment.

I'd have been hesitant to file the dispute. If someone there does indeed take note of the inconsistency, rather than approving your new video, it seems to me they could just as easily take down all the other ones where you used that artist's work!

 

They could Scott but I"d regard that possibility as highly unlikely, given the proliferation of non-blocked covers of this artist that are in existence. Every other video of this artist I"ve posted also had a copyright claim - but has not been blocked. And if they do, they do. Quite within their rights to stem the evil tide and it will be a fascinating learning experience.

 

If I were running a book I"d say the most likely outcome is the block will stand and that will be that.

 

The publisher has 30 days to respond. I"ll keep this thread apprised of the outcome.

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I have uploaded 14 videos to our band's youtube channel which are covers with synced video, plus 1 original song.

11 of the 14 covers were automatically recognized by youtube, with a copyright claim attached, but with no strikes.

The other 3 were not automatically recognized, which is odd because their descriptions plainly state which artist they are a cover of.

I have not monetized anything on our channel.

 

There is 1 song I was not able to make work: I uploaded a video of our band's cover of "Life in the Fast Lane".

It was immediately blocked for viewing in a very long list of places - I am assuming this block covers just about anywhere in the world that would matter.

I then deleted that video from my channel.

 

I did some web searches and came to understand Don Henley's strong opinions on this topic, including his objections on how composers get compensated by youtube and other online services.

While it was very inconvenient for me, since the video would have been the first from our band with my son singing the lead vocal, I totally understand Don Henley's point and I consider it a valid one.

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  • 2 months later...
Reviving this as today I had a very short excerpt of a cover blocked. Never happened to me before with this artist and I've posted plenty of their work on YouTube - as noted above.

 

I lodged a dispute. I don't dispute the copyright claim, just the inconsistency of the treatment.

I'd have been hesitant to file the dispute. If someone there does indeed take note of the inconsistency, rather than approving your new video, it seems to me they could just as easily take down all the other ones where you used that artist's work!

 

They could Scott but I"d regard that possibility as highly unlikely, given the proliferation of non-blocked covers of this artist that are in existence. Every other video of this artist I"ve posted also had a copyright claim - but has not been blocked. And if they do, they do. Quite within their rights to stem the evil tide and it will be a fascinating learning experience.

 

If I were running a book I"d say the most likely outcome is the block will stand and that will be that.

 

The publisher has 30 days to respond. I"ll keep this thread apprised of the outcome.

 

Pleased to report I'm a terrible bookmaker. The block was lifted. Thank you Mr Publishing Rights Owner.

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