YouTube Introduces Licensed Music Database And Making Money With Shorts

YouTube announces the Creator Music program that allows creators to license restricted music to still monetize videos featuring the music in question. The program is currently in beta in the US and coming to other countries later.

Creators can use all available music in YouTube Studio with
find the corresponding license costs.

The licensed music database can be used by creators in two ways, such as explains YouTube. Creators can choose to license a song directly, with the database clearly showing the terms of such agreement. Alternatively, creators can use a song for free, provided they agree to share the video’s revenue with its licensees.

In the latter scenario, a maker has to hand over half of his income to the licensee of a number. The Verge makes it even more tangible; a creator must relinquish 45 percent of a video’s ad revenue to YouTube. The remaining 55 percent is divided equally between the maker and the music licensee. If multiple numbers are used, the 55 percent is divided equally among all rights holders.

So far, all ad revenue from a video goes to the licensee when using copyrighted music. Recently, Facebook announced a similar licensing model with roughly the same terms.

In addition, YouTube is unveiling a program that allows creators to monetize their Shorts. From the beginning of 2023, YouTube will show advertisements in the Shorts feed, after which the amount earned from this will be distributed among the makers of the short videos. In this case, creators are only allowed to keep 45 percent of the revenue and hand over the rest to the video platform, with YouTube determining what the amount should be in proportion to the total number of Short views.