YouTube has announced that all US-based participants of the YouTube Partner Program now have access to Creator Music, its new marketplace. The website, which was first introduced in September of last year, offers a significant collection of songs that creators can browse, search, and buy. The terms of the music rights are explained in plain language so that creators can understand the costs involved. In addition to choosing tracks with revenue-sharing possibilities, creators have the option of purchasing licences, which allows both the creators and the rights holders to profit from the use of music.
The business stated last year that the problems with music rights have long been a source of frustration for creators.
Currently, when a creator uses a song they don’t own, they are required to give all of the advertising revenue from their video to the music license holder. As a result, it is common for YouTube videos to exclude commercial music, which is detrimental to the producers, their fans, and musicians and artists.
The purpose of Creator Music is to streamline the popular music licensing procedure. Creators can explore collections, genres, or moods on an online dashboard, search for the songs they’re looking for, and examine the licence fees thereafter. A budget that has been determined for their project can also be used by creators to look for music.
Creators who discover a suitable track have the option to either enter into a sharing arrangement or purchase a licence after carefully reading the rules. If they choose the first option, the makers can listen to and download the song right away to include it in their video while editing. They can select a track with the share option if they don’t want to pay a fee up front for the use of the music.
Larger producers who wish to more precisely manage the costs of their productions, as well as smaller artists who in the past haven’t been able to afford using commercial music in their videos, may both benefit from this kind of marketplace.
The new service merely offers an additional choice, not a replacement for YouTube’s current Audio Library of free tracks. Creators can use the “$0” pricing filter when searching throughout Creator Music to continue viewing free tracks, including those from the Audio Library.
The demand for stronger backing tracks for producers’ long-form video material has increased as YouTube and TikTok compete more and more in the short-form video space. Because of TikTok’s acceptance of popular music, the video app has a significant impact on the Billboard charts and the top charts in streaming services, as viral videos encourage more music downloads and streams. Recently, there have been rumours that TikTok, a competitor of YouTube, is also planning to launch its own streaming music business. Additionally, the Google-owned video platform had to maintain its competitiveness when TikTok extended the maximum duration of its films, edging closer to YouTube’s limits.
Of course, YouTube already provides popular music for use on Shorts through its Shorts Music Library, but many of those same songs previously wouldn’t have been commercially viable for use on YouTube itself due to their related costs and rights.
When it first launched, YouTube claimed to be collaborating with independent partners such as Empire, Believe, Downtown, and Merlin. At this time, no collaborations with the majors have been formally disclosed, but it has informed us that 100 labels are now involved.
The Creator Music effort was unveiled last fall alongside other more significant YouTube initiatives, such as its plan to commercialise Shorts and redesign its Partner Program to incorporate a new threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views over a 90-day period.
The firm claims that YPP creators in the U.S. now have full access to Creator Music, which was initially made gradually available to them. Over time, YouTube adds, it wants to expand the service’s availability to more nations and provide non-YPP authors more music alternatives.
