Creator Music gives creators new options to use music and earn revenue, while also giving music rights holders new ways to earn on YouTube. To get started with revenue sharing on Creator Music as a rights holder:
- Find out which of your sound recording assets are eligible to share revenue.
- Decide whether revenue sharing usage terms should be restricted or unrestricted.
Before you get started, use the information below to understand the difference between restricted and unrestricted usage.
Understand revenue sharing usage terms
Restricted usage
When you offer a track for licensing on Creator Music, revenue sharing is also enabled if a creators’ use of the track qualifies as restricted usage. Restricted usage means the creator's use of the track is restricted to 30 seconds in a video that must be 3 minutes or longer.
If the creator uses more than 30 seconds of the track, or if their video is shorter than 3 minutes, and they don’t license the content, their video would be unprotected against a copyright claim.
Unrestricted usage
In Creator Music, unrestricted usage means the creator can use any amount of your track in a video of any length. Unrestricted usage applies when your asset has no licensing strategy applied or when you manually deactivate a license strategy on an asset.
Usage icons
In Creator Music, tracks are displayed with icons that represent the track’s usage terms. Creators can use these icons to quickly understand what happens to their video if they use a track:
Eligible for revenue sharing. Use of the track means the video can share revenue with the track's rights holders. | |
Ineligible for monetization. Use of the track means the video can’t be monetized, but will remain visible on YouTube. | |
Video will be blocked. Use of the track means the video won’t be visible on YouTube. | |
Note: Licensable tracks are displayed in Creator Music with a price next to them. |
Find videos that are sharing revenue
Revenue sharing is based on a claiming system, similar to standard Content ID claims. In Studio Content Manager, a claimed video that’s sharing revenue shows as an automated Content ID claim with the same origin and claim type as other claimed videos. However, videos that are sharing revenue show on the Claimed videos page with the revenue sharing icon .
To see a list of claimed videos that are sharing revenue:
- Sign in to Studio Content Manager.
- From the left menu, select Claimed videos .
- Click the filter bar Revenue sharing with uploader.
To refine the search further:
- Click the filter bar Claim revenue sharing type select either:
- Revenue sharing: Videos with unrestricted usage.
- Revenue sharing with restrictions: Videos with restricted usage.
- Click APPLY.
View policies of videos sharing revenue
Once you find a claimed video that’s sharing revenue, you can see what policies are associated with the assets that claimed the videos.
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Follow steps above to find videos that are sharing revenue.
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Click the claimed video.
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On the Claimed video details page, from the left menu, select Policy .
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Claimed video policy: The final policy outcome. It includes other partner, uploader, and admin policies.
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Your claims: A list of every asset’s policy owned by you that’s claiming the video.
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To view policy details, hover over the info icon .
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To view asset details, hover over the asset’s title.
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Other (uploader) – Claim: Policy chosen by the video’s uploader. Often the uploader is an individual creator.
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YouTube admin policy: Policy applied by YouTube. Ads may not show on your video in certain territories where we would apply the track policy, such as with music content.
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- Policies of other partners that use Content ID won’t be displayed unless their policies impact yours.
- Sometimes policy info won't be displayed because a policy was overridden (for example, when a more restrictive policy overrides a less restrictive policy).
Revenue sharing FAQ
For partners who signed the Creator Music Amendment:
- If an asset has an assigned license strategy, it’s eligible for revenue sharing with restricted usage (except for license strategies manually deactivated by partner).
- If a license strategy has not been assigned to an asset, the asset is eligible for revenue sharing with unrestricted usage.
- Asset ownership change: For example, if asset ownership was transferred to a partner that didn’t sign the Creator Music Amendment. In this scenario, the claim would be converted to a standard Content ID claim.
- Policy changes: For example, if the asset's policy was changed to block.
- Third party copyright claim: For example, if a creator uploads a video that uses a revenue sharing track and uses other third-party content that gets a standard copyright claim, then the standard copyright claim will block revenue sharing on that video (unless the creator successfully disputes the claim).