YouTube launches its new commercial music licensing resource, Creator Music • TechCrunch

YouTube today announced that its new marketplace, Creator Music, is now fully open to all YouTube Partner Program participants in the United States. First announced last September, the online destination offers an extensive catalog of songs for creators to browse, search and purchase where music rights terms are spelled out in plain language, so creators can understand the costs. involved. In addition to being able to buy licenses, creators can also choose tracks that offer revenue sharing options where creators and rights holders earn money from the use of the music.

As the company explained last year, music rights issues have long been an issue for creators.

Today, when a creator uses a song they don’t own, they end up having to cede all advertising revenue from their video to the music licensee. This means that commercial music is often not used in YouTube videos, which harms creators, their fans, as well as artists and songwriters.

With the launch of Creator Music, the idea is to simplify the licensing process for popular music. Using an online dashboard, creators can search for the songs they have in mind or browse by collections, genres or moods, then view associated licensing costs. Additionally, creators can search for leads based on a budget they set for their project.

When they find an eligible track, creators can choose to purchase a license after reviewing the terms or opt for a rev-sharing deal. With the former, creators can immediately view and download the song to add to their video while editing. If they don’t want to pay an upfront cost for using the music, they can choose a track with the rev share option instead.

This type of market could benefit large creators who wish to more precisely control the costs associated with their productions, as well as small creators who have not always been able to afford to include commercial music in their videos.

The new service doesn’t replace YouTube’s existing free track audio library, it just offers another option. To continue seeing free songs, including those in the audio library, creators can set the price filter to “$0” when searching in Creator Music.

As YouTube increasingly competes with TikTok on short videos, the need for better backing tracks for long-form video content from creators has grown. TikTok’s embrace of popular music has led the video app to have a strong influence on Billboard charts and top streaming app charts, as viral videos spur more music streams and downloads. More recently, TikTok is also rumored to be expanding its own music streaming service – another market in which YouTube operates. And with TikTok extending the maximum length of its videos, gradually entering YouTube territory, the Google-owned video site had to stay competitive.

Of course, YouTube already offers popular music for use on Shorts through its Shorts Music Library, but many of those same songs would not have been viable for use on YouTube itself until now due to cost and associated rights.

At launch, YouTube said it was working with independent partners including Empire, Believe, Downtown, and Merlin. He hasn’t announced any major label partnerships yet.

The Creator Music Project launched last fall alongside other larger YouTube initiatives, including its plan to monetize shorts And reorganize its partnership program to include a new Shrots-specific threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 10 million views of Shorts over 90 days.

While Creator Music has been gradually released to YPP creators in the US, the company says it is now fully available to this group. YouTube says it aims to bring the service to more countries over time and expand music options for non-YPP creators as well.