MBA2301 Q&A Wednesday: How do I use non-copyrighted music for my YouTube videos?

Summary

The $100 MBA Show - Episode MBA2301 Q&A Wednesday: How to Use Non-Copyrighted Music for Your YouTube Videos

Host: Omar Zenhom
Release Date: May 3, 2023

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Introduction

In Episode MBA2301 of The $100 MBA Show, host Omar Zenhom delves into a pressing issue for YouTube content creators: navigating copyright laws to ensure monetization remains uninterrupted. This episode, part of the "Q&A Wednesday" series, provides actionable strategies for using non-copyrighted music in YouTube videos, addressing common challenges faced by creators aiming to grow their channels without legal hindrances.

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Listener's Question

The episode kicks off with a question from Hasan, a dedicated listener who has been following the podcast for over three months. Hasan explains:

"I've been growing my YouTube channel, but I keep getting slammed for copyright infringement for music I'm using in the background, making it harder and harder for me to monetize my channel. I don't want to keep on creating videos that get demonetized."
(Timestamp: 02:12)

Hasan is grappling with the frustration of having well-performing videos demonetized due to background music issues, despite having thousands of views. He seeks Omar's expertise to navigate this predicament without compromising his existing content or future monetization efforts.

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Omar's Response

Omar acknowledges the ubiquity of Hasan's problem, emphasizing that even reputable royalty-free music can sometimes trigger YouTube's automated systems erroneously. He outlines a comprehensive approach to circumvent these challenges, ensuring creators can monetize their content seamlessly.

a. Understanding YouTube's Copyright System

Omar begins by explaining the unpredictability of YouTube's copyright enforcement:

"YouTube will just kind of mark your videos as demonetized... There's no rhyme or reason for this. YouTube is a huge organization."
(Timestamp: 04:00)

He underscores the difficulty in contesting these flags due to the platform's vast and automated nature.

b. Utilizing YouTube’s Audio Library

The first solution Omar presents is leveraging YouTube's built-in Audio Library, a treasure trove of royalty-free music and sound effects designed specifically for creators:

"There’s a little hidden secret, hidden menu inside of your YouTube studio... YouTube is actually giving creators songs and music of all kinds that they can use for their videos."
(Timestamp: 05:00)

Accessing the Audio Library:

1. Navigate to YouTube Studio: Sign in to your YouTube account and go to the left-hand menu.
2. Select 'Audio Library': This section offers over 700 tracks and numerous sound effects.
3. Advantages:
   • Copyright Safe: Music provided here is vetted by YouTube, ensuring no demonetization.
   • Regular Updates: Approximately 20-30 new tracks are added weekly, expanding your options.

Omar addresses common concerns about the uniqueness of the music:

"You have a wide selection, over 700 music pieces... but you can have a unique piece of music that goes with the vibe of your brand and your video."
(Timestamp: 05:45)

c. Alternative: Audio Jungle

For creators seeking a more personalized touch, Omar recommends Audio Jungle, a platform offering a vast array of affordable music tracks:

"AudioJungle.net has hundreds of thousands of different songs you can buy... It's pretty inexpensive. Songs start at $2."
(Timestamp: 06:30)

Key Points:

• Variety and Uniqueness: With thousands of tracks, creators can find music that aligns perfectly with their video's theme.
• Pricing: Affordable options, with many tracks available between $2 to $6.
• Licensing Considerations:
  • Choose the Right License: Ensure the selected license covers your intended use, especially for commercial purposes.
  • Documentation: Always include license information in your video description to aid in dispute resolutions.

Omar cautions:

"Some songs or some writers of songs will give kind of a generous license... Some of them are a little bit more restrictive."
(Timestamp: 07:15)

d. Custom Music via Fiverr

For those desiring a truly unique sound, Omar suggests commissioning custom music through platforms like Fiverr:

"You can go on fiverr.com and commission an artist to create a custom piece of music for you... I've done this on the cheap. I've created songs or commissioned artists to do this for $20, $15."
(Timestamp: 08:00)

Benefits:

• Personalization: Tailored to match your brand's identity and the specific vibe of your content.
• Cost-Effective: Affordable rates for custom compositions.
• Versatility: Owning multiple tracks allows for variety across different videos, preventing monotony.

e. Additional Tips and Recommendations

Omar emphasizes the importance of proactive measures:

"You're building a business for the long term... It's in their favor to make sure that you're using the right stuff, the right audio tracks."
(Timestamp: 07:00)

He advises creators to:

• Stay Updated: Regularly check for new additions to YouTube's Audio Library.
• Maintain Documentation: Keep records of all licenses and permissions to swiftly address any disputes.
• Engage with Musicians: Building relationships with artists can lead to mutually beneficial licensing agreements, especially for high-performing videos.

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Final Thoughts

Omar concludes by commending Hasan for his conscientious approach to content creation:

"I love Hasan's question because he wants to do things the right way... You're building a brand. You're building a YouTube channel that's going to grow and be your marketing engine."
(Timestamp: 08:20)

He encourages all listeners to adopt these strategies to safeguard their channels against copyright issues, ensuring sustained growth and monetization.

Call to Action:

• Engage with the Podcast: Send in more questions to Omar at [e-mail].
• Subscribe and Follow: Stay updated by subscribing on platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts to access over 2,300 episodes.

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Conclusion

Episode MBA2301 of The $100 MBA Show offers invaluable insights into managing copyrighted music on YouTube. Omar Zenhom's practical advice equips creators with the tools and knowledge to navigate copyright challenges, ensuring their content remains monetized and free from legal complications. Whether utilizing YouTube's Audio Library, exploring platforms like Audio Jungle, or commissioning custom music, creators are empowered to build their channels with confidence and creativity.

Transcript

[Jim]

Got a 7am meeting on a Monday expensing breakfast because it's in policy wasting all afternoon submitting an expense report for that breakfast. If your company used Ramp, you could submit expenses with just a text.

[Omar Zenhom]

Yay.

[Ramp]

Free your team from expense reports today. Switch your business to ramp.com.

[Omar Zenhom]

Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 RMBA show. No fluff, just the good stuff every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and a Wednesday, answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me [e-mail] Today's question is from Hasan and Hassan asks hey Omar, love the podcast. I've been a listener for over three months now and I got a question for you. I've been growing my YouTube channel, but I keep getting slammed for copyright infringement for music I'm using in the background, making it harder and harder for me to monetize my channel. I'm not really sure what to do because I don't want to keep on creating videos that keep getting demonetized. I already have videos that I've created, have gotten thousands of views, but I can't monetize them because of the music. I'm not going to change my old videos, but I want to know what to do for future videos so that I can make sure I'm in the clear for monetization. I know that You've started a YouTube channel for webinar Ninja recently. Would love to hear more about your experience when it comes to copyrighted music and what I should do in my situation. Hasan, this is a great question because everybody who starts on YouTube, us included, experience this. YouTube will just kind of mark your videos as demonetized. Even if you have music that you believe to be royalty free that you bought somewhere else, or maybe it's not commercial music, like even music that you've attributed the creator to and you have permission from the creator. There's no rhyme or reason for this. YouTube is a huge organization. You're not going to fight them on that call. You just need to make sure you're in the clear. So I'm going to share with you what you should do, what kind of music you should use, where to get that Music and how to make sure 100% your videos do not get demonetized so that when they do get thousands of views, you get the reward. Even if you don't have a YouTube channel right now or publish videos on YouTube, you should really know about this because it could benefit you down the line. When it's time for you to start your YouTube channel, start marketing with YouTube for your business. Because you don't want to be like Hasan who has all these great videos with thousands of views that you can't monetize because the video there is using music that is deemed copyrighted by YouTube. And there's not much he can do because if he replaces the video, he's gonna have to start all over with the actual views. So it's better to know how to do it from the start. So you're winning from the get go. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So Hasan wants to make sure that his YouTube videos are not slapped by that copyright infringement notice because of the music. Now the answer to his question, his solution to his problem, is actually pretty simple and it's pretty easy. I'm gonna give you the surefire way you'll never get slapped copyright infringement and you can monetize all your videos. There's a little hidden secret, hidden menu inside of your YouTube studio on the left that allows you to use royalty free, free of cost, copyright infringement proof music and sound effects. Yep, you heard that right. YouTube is actually giving creators songs and music of all kind that they can use for their videos. To access it, just go to your left menu. When you sign into your studio, you should see a menu item called audio library. Now I know you might be thinking, well, if they're giving us music to use, isn't everybody going to be using the same music or the same sound effects or the same audio and making my videos not that unique. Awesome question. You're in luck. This is something new that YouTube has recently done and already they have added over 700 hundred audio files, over 700 songs you can use and tons of sound effects like applause, even background noise like kids playing or birds chirping or busy crowded street. But you have a wide selection, over 700 music pieces that you can use inside of your videos that will assure you that your music is Safe. Why? Because YouTube gave you this music. They can recognize immediately that this is a song or a piece of music that's on your video that is not infringing any of their rules. And they keep adding new audio files to My estimation, they're adding about 20 or 30 new files every single week. So they're on track to have thousands of audio files and music tracks by the end of the year. So you are actually really lucky to be using YouTube because YouTube is giving everything creators need to create great content. Gotta remember, YouTube is incentivized by doing this because if creators create great content, great videos, they can run more ads. They don't want to demonetize your videos. In fact, it's in their favor to make sure that you're using the right stuff, the right audio tracks, so that they can run ads on your videos. Because basically the more videos that are legit on YouTube, the more real estate they have to sell their ads. So it's a bit of a win win. Now here's another alternative if you don't want to use the built in library inside of YouTube. Audio Jungle. I love Audio Jungle. AudioJungle.net has hundreds of thousands of different songs you can buy. I've bought different songs and audio files from Audio Jungle for sales videos, for explainer videos, all kinds of videos, so that I can have a unique piece of music that goes with the vibe of my brand and my video. It's pretty inexpensive. Songs start at $2. Sometimes really unique songs or popular songs, maybe about $5 or $6. But it's a great little addition to make you unique in your videos. And some of these songs are actually quite varied. So they have different parts and different, I would say h that you can actually use one audio file on various videos, different videos, and it'll sound kind of like different music. Now, a word of caution. When you buy an audio file from Audio Jungle, you need to make sure you choose the right license. Look at the description of each license to know what you're using this song for. Some songs or some writers of songs will give kind of a generous license where you can use it for anything you want, commercial or otherwise. Some of them are a little bit more restrictive. Some of them are for a certain number of plays read, so you make sure that you have the right license. Next, once you've bought your song and you have your license, post the license information in the description of your video. YouTube's bots are very sophisticated and they are built to search for this information. So if you have this information displayed on your video in your description and everything's on the up and up, you have a very high likelihood of things being fine and not being flagged. Now, you might still be flagged for some reason. It could be A mistake on their part. But when you actually refute this flag, you know, and you say to YouTube, Hey, I think this is a mistake. You have all the license information. You can send them the PDF that you get when you bought the piece of music and should be sorted very quickly. Now, remember I said you might have videos that you've put up on YouTube in the past that are using music or songs that got flagged as copyrighted material. If your videos are very, very popular, have thousands of views, tend to get a lot of views every day, and you wish you could monetize it, reach out to the person that created that music, you might be able to get a license. Some musicians are happy to make a few extra bucks, and it might be worth your time if it's an investment in monetizing that video. Get them to send you a license that you can use on the description and send it to YouTube and say, Hey, I got a license for this music. Can you please remove the demonetization? Because, hey, I actually allowed legally to use this music now.

[Narrator]

And we're back, folks. It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts.

His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time?

He's going for it.

Is that his phone?

He's snapping a pic. He's texting Ramp.

Jim is fast, but this is unheard of.

That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable on Ramp.

[Ramp]

Except expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text. Switch your business to ramp.com.

[Omar Zenhom]

Now. There is another really unique option that I've done in the past, and I would recommend this option. If you are growing your YouTube channel and you're getting hundreds of thousands of views on your videos, and you really are making money with monetization. So it's worth money for you to invest in your music. Even if you're not doing hundreds of thousands of views, but thousands of views, it might be worth it. You can do the math. So what is this idea? Well, it's going on fiverr.com and commissioning an artist to create a custom piece of music for you. In fact, you can ask them to create 4 or 5 or 10 or 20 tracks if you want. If you have a kind of theme or type of branding you want to be a part of, or maybe the concept of the idea behind your video would go along with a certain type of music. Tell this artist about it. You might give them some examples of songs you like. Songs that you want it to sound like kind of, or have elements of the same vibe, the same tempo, and they can create you a custom song and give you a license for it. Now, I've done this on the cheap. I've created songs or commissioned artists to do this for $20, $15. And I have my own customized music. Now, in my experience in creating content, you don't actually need that many pieces of music. You can actually have like 10 songs and rotate those songs every time you create a video, keeping your videos fresh. Now, using the same music or songs in every video can get kind of monotonous, but if you've got 10 songs, you'll stay fresh for a very long time. Well, there you have it, guys. I hope that helps you. Hasan, who asked today's Q and A Wednesday's question. If you got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at [e-mail]. I'll make sure to answer right here on Q and A Wednesday. If you love this podcast, if you want to make sure you don't miss a beat, hit, subscribe, hit follow right now on your favorite podcast app, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts, hit the triple dots on your favorite podcast podcast app and hit subscribe or follow. And by doing so, you get access to over 2,300 episodes in our archives. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I love Hasan's question because he wants to do things the right way. He wants to make sure that he's building something for the future, something that doesn't haunt him in the past. You know, you might get away with some piece of music that you got from Soundcloud or something like that without asking the artist. But why take the risk? You're building a business for the long term. You're building a brand. You're building YouTube channel that's going to be able to grow and be a monster and be your marketing engine. It's going to take a little bit of effort and maybe a little bit of money and maybe not if you use YouTube's library to do it the right way. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

[Narrator]

And we're back, folks. It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts.

His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time?

He's going for it.

Is that his phone?

He's snapping a pick. He's texting. Ramp.

Jim is fast, but this is unheard of.

That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.

[Ramp]

On ramp, expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text. Switch your business to ramp.