If you use a track that's eligible to share revenue in your video, it means you can split that video’s revenue with the track's rights holders.
Start sharing revenue
To activate music revenue sharing on a video:
- Find tracks that can share revenue.
- Create a video that meets the revenue sharing usage requirements.
- Upload the video to YouTube.
- During the Checks stage of the upload process, we’ll look for copyright-protected content in your video. If a track that’s eligible for revenue sharing is found, your video will be automatically enabled for revenue sharing (as long as there are no Content ID claims for content that’s unable to share revenue).
Revenue sharing starts as soon as your video is published to YouTube.Understand usage requirements for revenue sharing
Videos that use revenue sharing tracks from Creator Music must meet these usage requirements to be eligible to share revenue:
- Track and video duration: Video uses an appropriate amount of the track in an appropriate length of video:
- If the track is licensable, but you don’t want to buy a license, you can share revenue by using the track for less than 30 seconds in a video that's longer than 3 minutes.
- If the track is not licensable, but is eligible for revenue sharing, you can share revenue by using as much of the track as you want in a video of any duration.
- No monetization issues: Video can't have monetization issues, such as:
- Content ID claims that have blocked visibility or disabled monetization.
- Violations of YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines.
- No live streams or Shorts: Video can't be a live stream or a Short. Learn about Shorts revenue sharing.
Remember that usage requirements can change at the rights holders’ discretion. For example, after you upload a video that uses a revenue sharing track, the rights holder could later disable monetization for the track, which would disable monetization for your video. Changes to usage terms can apply in certain territories or all territories.
Understand how revenue share is calculated
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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Check revenue sharing status
After publishing a video, you can get info about its revenue sharing status in YouTube Studio:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio.
- From the left menu, select Content
.
- In the Videos tab, find the video you added a revenue sharing track to.
- To confirm the video is sharing revenue, look for
Sharing in the Monetization column.
- For details, click the video thumbnail.
- From the left menu, select Copyright
- In the Impact on the video column, hover over
Sharing revenue.
.
Keep in mind that usage details can change at the discretion of the rights holders.