MBA2301 Q&A Wednesday: How do I use non-copyrighted music for my YouTube videos?

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show. No fluff, just the good stuff every single day with our daily 10-minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. I'm also the co-founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company. I started with my co-founder back in 2014. And today's episode is Q &A Wednesday. On Q &A Wednesdays, I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. Today's question is from Hassan, and Hassan asks, Hey Omar, love the podcast.

0:41I've been a listener for over three months now, and I got a question for you. I've been growing my YouTube channel, but I keep getting slammed for copyright infringement for music I'm using in the background, making it harder and harder for me to monetize my channel. I'm not really sure what to do because I don't want to keep on creating videos that keep getting demonetized. I already have videos that I've created that have gotten thousands of views, but I can't monetize them because of the music. I'm not going to change my old videos, but I want to know what to do for future videos so that I can make sure I'm in the clear for monetization.

1:15I know that you've started a YouTube channel for Webinar Ninja recently. Would love to hear more about your experience when it comes to copyrighted music and what I should do in my situation. Hasan, this is a great question because everybody who starts in YouTube, us included, experiences. YouTube will just kind of mark your videos as demonetized, even if you have music that you believe to be royalty free that you bought somewhere else. Or maybe it's not commercial music, like even music that you've attributed the creator to and you have permission from the creator. There's no rhyme or reason for this.

1:45YouTube is a huge organization. You're not going to fight them on that call. You just need to make sure you're in the clear. So I'm going to share with you what you should do, what kind of music you should use, where to get that music, and how to make sure 100 % your videos do not get demonetized so that when they do get thousands of views, you get the reward. Even if you don't have a YouTube channel right now or publish videos on YouTube, you should really know about this because it could benefit you down the line when it's time for you to start your YouTube channel, start marketing with YouTube for your business, because you don't want to be like, Hassan has all these great videos with thousands of views that you can't monetize because the video there is using music that is deemed copyrighted by YouTube.

2:28And there's not much he can do because if he replaces the video, he's going to have to start all over with the actual views. So it's better to know how to do it from the start so you're winning from the get-go. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. so hustle wants to make sure that his youtube videos are not slapped by that copyright infringement notice because of the music now the answer to his question his solution to his problem is actually pretty simple and it's pretty easy i'm going to give you the surefire way you'll never get slapped by this copyright infringement and you can monetize all your videos there's a little hidden secret hidden menu inside of your YouTube studio on the left that allows you to use royalty-free, free of cost, copyright infringement proof music and sound effects.

3:16Yep, you heard that right. YouTube is actually giving creators songs and music of all kind that they can use for their videos. To access it, just go to your left menu when you sign into your studio. You should see a menu item called audio library. Now, I know you might be thinking, well, if they're giving us music to use, isn't everybody going to be using the same music or the same sound effects or the same audio and making my videos not that unique? Awesome question. You're in luck. This is something new that YouTube has recently done, and already they have added over 700 audio files, over 700 songs you can use and tons of sound effects like applause, even background noise like kids playing or birds chirping or busy crowded street.

4:03But you have a wide selection, over 700 music pieces that you can use inside of your videos that will assure you that your music is safe. Why? Because YouTube gave you this music. They can recognize immediately that this is a song or a piece of music that's on your video that is not infringing any of their rules. And they keep adding new audio files. To my estimation, they're adding about 20 or 30 new files every single week. So they're on track to have thousands of audio files and music tracks by the end of the year. So you are actually really lucky to be using YouTube because YouTube is giving everything creators need to create great content.

4:46Gotta remember, YouTube is incentivized by doing this because if creators create great content, great videos. They can run more ads. They don't want to demonetize your videos. In fact, it's in their favor to make sure that you're using the right stuff, the right audio tracks, so that they can run ads on your videos. Because basically, the more videos that are legit on YouTube, the more real estate they have to sell their ads. So it's a bit of a win-win. Now, here's another alternative if you don't want to use the built-in library inside of YouTube. Audio Jungle. I love Audio Jungle. Audiojungle.net has hundreds of thousands of different songs you can buy.

5:24I've bought different songs and audio files from Audio Jungle for sales videos, for explainer videos, all kinds of videos so that I can have a unique piece of music that goes with the vibe of my brand and my video. It's pretty inexpensive. Songs start at$2 sometimes. Really unique songs or popular songs, maybe about$5 or$6. But it's a great little addition to make you unique in your videos. And some of these songs are actually quite varied. So like they have different parts and different, I would say, hooks that you can actually use one audio file on various videos, different videos, and it'll sound kind of like different music.

6:03Now, a word of caution. When you buy an audio file from AudioJungle, you need to make sure you choose the right license. Look at the description of each license to know what you're using this song for. Some songs or some writers of songs will give kind of a generous license where you can use it for anything you want, commercial or otherwise. Some of them are a little bit more restrictive. Some of them are for a certain number of plays. Read so you make sure that you have the right license. Next, once you've bought your song and you have your license, post the license information in the description of your video.

6:39YouTube's bots are very sophisticated and they are built to search for this information. So if you have this information displayed on your video in your description and everything's on the up and up, you have a very high likelihood of things being fine and not being flagged. Now, you might still be flagged for some reason. It could be a mistake on their part. But when you actually refute this flag, you know, and you say to YouTube, hey, I think this is a mistake. You have all the license information. You can send them the PDF that you get when you bought the piece of music and should be sorted very quickly.

7:11Now, remember I said you might have videos that you've put up on YouTube in the past that are using music or songs that got flagged as copyrighted material. material if your videos are very very popular have thousands of views tend to get a lot of views every day and you wish you can monetize it reach out to the person that created that music you might be able to get a license some musicians are happy to make a few extra bucks and it might be worth your time if it's an investment in monetizing that video get them to send you a license that you can use on the description and send it to youtube and say hey i got a license for this music can you Please remove the demonetization because, hey, I am actually allowed legally to use this music now.

7:56Now, there is another really unique option that I've done in the past. And I would recommend this option if you are growing your YouTube channel and you're getting hundreds of thousands of views on your videos. And you really are making money with monetization. So it's worth money for you to invest in your music. Even if you're not doing hundreds of thousands of views, but thousands of views, it might be worth it. You can do the math. So what is this idea? Well, it's going on fiverr.com and commissioning an artist to create a custom piece of music for you. In fact, you can ask them to create four or five or 10 or 20 tracks if you want.

8:31If you have a kind of theme or type of branding you want to be a part of, or maybe the concept or the idea behind your video would go along with a certain type of music, tell this artist about it. You might give them some examples of songs you like, songs that you want it to sound like kind of, or have elements of the same vibe, the same tempo, and they can create you a custom song and give you a license for it. Now, I've done this on the cheap. I've created songs and commissioned artists to do this for$20,$15, and I have my own customized music. Now, in my experience in creating content, you don't actually need that many pieces of music.

9:06You can actually have like 10 songs and rotate those songs every time you create a video, keeping your videos fresh. Now, using the same music or songs in every video can get kind of monotonous. But if you've got 10 songs, you'll stay fresh for a very long time. Well, there you have it, guys. I hope that helps you, Hasan, who asked today's Q &A Wednesday's question. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. I'll make sure to answer right here on Q &A Wednesday. If you love this podcast, if you want to make sure you don't miss a beat, hit subscribe, hit follow right now on your favorite podcast app, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

9:43Hit the triple dots on your favorite podcast app and hit subscribe or follow. And by doing so, you get access to over 2 ,300 episodes in our archives. Before I go, I wanna leave you with this. I love Hasan's question because he wants to do things the right way. He wants to make sure that he's building something for the future or something that doesn't haunt him in the past. You know, you might get away with some piece of music that you got from SoundCloud or something like that without asking the artist. But why take the risk? You're building a business for the long term. You're building a brand.

10:14You're building a YouTube channel that's going to be able to grow and be a monster and be your marketing engine. It's going to take a little bit of effort and maybe a little bit of money, and maybe not if you use YouTube's library to do it the right way. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

10:39Thank you.