Where is the line between free use and copyright? (Music)

[pageym]

Hi there

I'm posting this to find out any information on using music in videos. An example, 2 best friends play a popular lets play channel has a kirby theme tune for the beginning of their videos. And on many others they have some copyright music on to set the mood etc. There are other partnered youtube channels like this, I'm just wondering is there any information out there as to why these are allowed to gain money and not get striked?

thanks

 

[Styxie]

You can't use copyrighted music in your videos, end of. The exception is if the publisher/label/etc have given the correct clearance.

 

[subversiveasset]

So, the way YouTube Content ID works is that if there is an automatic match, then the copyright owner can do one of a few things:

1) monetize it (so that they get all the monetization and the youtuber gets nothing)
2) block in in some or all countries
3) issue a takedown notice

With many pieces of music, publishers or their representatives actually take the first option -- so, just because you see someone using a particular piece of music, you can't assume that the youtuber who uploaded it is the one who is getting the monetization for that.

However, I will note that for *video game music*, many pieces of video game music are NOT in content ID, so they are not automatically matched via Content ID. In that case, a publisher (or representative thereof) would have to manually identify the music, after which they could decide to let the music stay up, or they could issue a takedown notice.

This is why you will often times see full albums of video game music published by certain channels -- they are definitely against the law, but since the publisher/composer isn't in the content ID system and doesn't check youtube for infringing works, nothing happens.

(As a side note, I'll note that the entire Let's Play genre is a legal gray area, where it's probably mostly copyright infringement. However, many (not all) game developers typically allow LPers to use their copyright without issue, because they find it to be free publicity for their games. In this case, they might allow the LPers to monetize, even though the game developer could monetize for themselves.)