General FAQs
What is Creator Music?- Some songs can be licensed, which means creators pay an upfront fee (or for some tracks, no fee) to use the music in their video and keep the video’s revenue. Learn more.
- Some songs can share revenue, which means creators don’t pay anything upfront and they split their video’s revenue with the music rights holders. Learn more.
Creator Music lives in YouTube Studio and allows you to browse, preview, and download songs to use in your YouTube videos. For each track, you may see the following usage options:
- Buy a license: Pay an upfront fee to use music and earn the same revenue share that applies to your content without music.
- Revenue share: Share video revenue with the track’s rights holders.
Currently we only allow downloading of licensable tracks from Creator Music.
For revenue share eligible tracks, you'll need to source the download of the track outside of Creator Music.
If you used music that isn’t licensable or eligible for revenue sharing through Creator Music and you got a Content ID claim, you have a couple options:
- Remove claimed content: If you used music that isn’t licensable through Creator Music, you can remove the claimed content to clear the associated restrictions. Learn more how to remove claimed content from videos.
- Dispute a claim: If you used music that isn’t licensable through YouTube, but you have the rights to use the content, or if our system misidentified the music, you can dispute the Content ID claim. Learn more how to submit a dispute.
License FAQs
What is a license?Music partners that own the rights to the tracks set the license prices. Keep in mind that some tracks have a set price for all creators, while others may have customized pricing based on your channel’s size.
Prices of licenses are subject to change at the discretion of the rights holder.
Licensing a track from Creator Music should prevent you from getting a Content ID claim or a copyright takedown for your use of that track. If you believe you got a copyright claim on your licensed track in error, please get in touch with our support team so we can look into it for you.
Keep in mind that if your video contains any other copyright-protected content (besides the song you licensed), the other copyright-protected content is subject to a copyright claim. Learn more about your options for responding to a Content ID claim or a copyright removal request.
You can request a refund for a Creator Music license directly from the Creator Music Library page in YouTube Studio. To request a refund:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio.
- From the left menu, select Creator Music
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- Select the Your Library tab.
- Find the track with the license you want a refund for.
- (Optional) To view only your licensed tracks, click Licensed at the top of the page.
- In the track’s row, click "More actions"
Request refund.
- Complete the refund request form.
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Request refund.After you submit your refund request form, our support team will process a refund for you if the request is eligible under the Creator Music refund policy. To review the refund policy, go to the "Cancellation and Refunds" section of the Creator Music Terms of Service.
Revenue sharing FAQs
When am I eligible to share revenue?- When you see the share revenue icon next to a track
- You can use as much of the track in a video of any duration.
- If a track is licensable, but you don’t want to buy a license
- Your use of the track must be less than 30 seconds in a video longer than 3 minutes.
With Creator Music, if a long-form video uses tracks that are eligible for revenue sharing, the standard 55% revenue share is adjusted to cover the costs of clearing music rights as shown in the examples below. This depends on:
- Number of tracks used: How many eligible revenue sharing tracks a creator uses in their video (see examples below).
- Additional music rights costs: Deduction to cover additional music rights costs, such as performing rights. This deduction can be up to 5% and will reflect the blended cost of these additional music rights across Creator Music tracks that are eligible for revenue sharing.
Example: Use of 1 revenue sharing track |
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Example: Creator uses 1 revenue sharing track in their long-form video and earns half of the standard 55% revenue share (27.5%). As an example, the deduction for additional music rights costs could be 2.5%. For this video, the creator would earn 25% of total revenue (27.5% - 2.5%). |
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Example: Use of 2 revenue sharing tracks and 1 licensed track |
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Example: Creator uses 2 revenue sharing tracks and 1 licensed track in their long-form video and earns 1/3 of the standard 55% revenue share (18.33%). As an example, the deduction for additional music rights costs could be 2%. For this video, the creator would earn 16.33% of total revenue (18.33% - 2%). |
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- Content ID did not detect the revenue sharing eligible track in your video. If the track is identified by Content ID later on as being eligible for revenue sharing, your video will be enabled for revenue sharing at that time.
- The rights holder(s) may have disabled revenue sharing for the track after the point at which you uploaded your video.
- A license is available for purchase, but your use of the track is not less than 30 seconds in a video longer than 3 minutes.
- Your video has a Content ID claim for other third-party content that is not eligible for revenue sharing. Learn about your options for resolving a Content ID claim.
If you don’t want to share revenue on your video, you can acquire a license for the track if it's available. Once the license is added to your video, you will receive full monetization of your video if there are no other monetization issues.
Note: Licensing tracks after upload is only possible for a short amount of time after a video is published.
If you believe you have all the rights to use the track in your video, you can dispute the claim.