# Youtube royalties?Yes or no?



## Christof (Oct 26, 2016)

Last year I was asked to do some custom music for a trailer.
The trailer has 12.632.234 views on youtube in the meanwhile.
I have no idea if this is a lot or not, but here my question:
Is a composer qualified to receive royalties through youtube?
If yes, how may the accounting work?
Is there a rate per viewer/ip?(Otherwise I would watch the trailer in a loop for years 

Christof


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## chillbot (Oct 26, 2016)

I'm very curious about how this works also. I receive very minimal royalties from youtube via BMI. I have never personally licensed a track for use on youtube but I also don't own most of my music, so I'm not aware of the path that a track takes to get onto youtube. I also don't recognize any of the track names I'm getting paid for, they somehow get renamed somewhere along the line? That may be a different issue. So I couldn't even track down which tracks they are or which videos they're playing in even if I wanted to.

Last quarter I had roughly 80 separate tracks listed as "aired" on youtube for which I recieved $14.28. (Wee!)

Not a lot of plays, but the payments were fairly consistent:

10k views $0.84
15k views $1.24
20k views $1.86
30k views $2.68

HOWEVER, on the BMI statement they don't list the length of the track, which seems odd to me... unless the payments are somehow independent of length?

Based on my payments, your trailer could potentially generate over $1,100 for you with that many views so I would definitely look into it. (Note: I assume 12M views is for the lifetime of the trailer on youtube, whereas my numbers above are what BMI picked up and paid for ONE QUARTER only. But still you get the point.)

Sorry I can't help more. Very interested in the topic though.


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## chillbot (Oct 26, 2016)

Christof said:


> Otherwise I would watch the trailer in a loop for years



No idea how youtube tallies viewers, if IP addresses matters... but at the rate I got paid, if you watched it nonstop for a full year (assuming it's 3 minutes long) you would watch it 175,200 times and that would generate around $15.65 for you. Worth it?


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## Mike Fox (Oct 26, 2016)

Christof said:


> Last year I was asked to do some custom music for a trailer.
> The trailer has 12.632.234 views on youtube in the meanwhile.
> I have no idea if this is a lot or not, but here my question:
> Is a composer qualified to receive royalties through youtube?
> ...


Is the uploaded video monetized, and do you still own the rights to the music?


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## JohnG (Oct 26, 2016)

chillbot said:


> I receive very minimal royalties from youtube via BMI



Me too; "minimal." As in, "you need an electron microscope to observe them."


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## Mike Fox (Oct 26, 2016)

Since I own the rights to my music, I have my youtube channel directly synced with my Google Adsense account. This keeps track of everything, and also dispenses the royalties into my Paypal account. That probably doesnt answer your question.


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## Christof (Oct 26, 2016)

mikefox789 said:


> Is the uploaded video monetized, and do you still own the rights to the music?


I think it is not monetized, it's the official Universal Pictures youtube channel, and yes, I own the rights to the music.


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## sleepy hollow (Oct 27, 2016)

Does your PRO have an agreement with Youtube?

(if your PRO is AKM, then the answer is yes, btw)


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## Christof (Oct 27, 2016)

Yes AKM


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## Baron Greuner (Oct 27, 2016)

What about registering tracks specifically on YouTube through AdRev? Does that make it easier to receive royalties versus a PRO?


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## Dean (Oct 29, 2016)

Christof said:


> Last year I was asked to do some custom music for a trailer.
> The trailer has 12.632.234 views on youtube in the meanwhile.
> I have no idea if this is a lot or not, but here my question:
> Is a composer qualified to receive royalties through youtube?
> ...



Hey Christof, 13mill views could earn you about 1k - 2k or so.I had some trailers do quite well[based on about 40 mill views] it payed out about $5k in royalties,that was my end,publishers took their split too.
Only thing is,..this money comes from all the unofficial monetized YT channels as the official channels like Marvel,Lionsgate etc, don't usually monetize their own channels [to my knowledge] pretty sure they control their own content/ads.[I did a recent trailer that viewed 65 million times at one link in 24 hours but I wont get a dime from that as it was on an official channel,..no 3rd party ads.

And yes,there are rates per view.per channel etc,..[can't remember though] the publishers used very good audio recognition software and plain ole dedective work too to chase Adrev for their end,..I suppose you need a private setup to do that for you? I woul'nt leave it in the hands of any PRO if I were you,..they are mainly passive societies who wont go looking unless you're constantly directing them and feeding them with links to chase and so on.
D


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## rgames (Oct 29, 2016)

I've never been able to wrap my head around YouTube either but never really tried because it doesn't seem like a lot of money (yet).

I do get YT royalties in my PRO statemens (tiny amounts...) but I also get them through CD Baby, where I sell my albums. I've never been clear what's paying for what.

I've always assumed that it's like the difference between a synch fee and a performance royalty: the YT AdRev program (or whatever it's called) is the synch fee generator, right? So those royalties require that the video be monetized. However, that revenue should be independent of any PRO-based revenues because PROs aren't dealing with AdRev, are they? I assume the revenues on CD Baby are from the AdRev payments that, theoretically, CD Baby is tracking.

I think you might be able to make some money with 10M+ views but only if the video is monetized (i.e. tracked in AdRev). If it's not monetized, I think you'll get only those tiny payouts that you get in your PRO statement.

I seriously doubt a trailer is monetized - it's a commercial, after all, and I don't think you're going to woo people with ads on top of your ad. That's why I don't monetize my YT channel: my videos are there to drive people to purchase tracks/albums. So it's already one giant commercial. Putting someone else's ads on top of my ads doesn't seem conducive to bulding a following.

rgames


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## Dean (Oct 29, 2016)

rgames said:


> I seriously doubt a trailer is monetized - it's a commercial, after all, and I don't think you're going to woo people with ads on top of your ad. That's why I don't monetize my YT channel: my videos are there to drive people to purchase tracks/albums. So it's already one giant commercial. Putting someone else's ads on top of my ads doesn't seem conducive to bulding a following.
> 
> rgames



Maybe you missed my previous post?,trailers are monetised but just not on official YT channels like Marvel,Disney etc,
[My channels not monetized either.]All of the trailer videos and the seperated music tracks uploaded 'unofficially' by fans and trailer sites combined can lead to tens of millions of views which generates decent royalties.If I want trailer vids on my website or YT channel without ads I just upload the official channel versions[with no ads]

D


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## zacnelson (Oct 29, 2016)

How does it work if a trailer includes 3 or 4 different pieces of music? Is there a system that calculates what % of the video used YOUR music, and then you got that portion of the YT ad revenue?


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## Dean (Oct 30, 2016)

zacnelson said:


> How does it work if a trailer includes 3 or 4 different pieces of music? Is there a system that calculates what % of the video used YOUR music, and then you got that portion of the YT ad revenue?



Id imagine so,..no clue HOW its done though? D


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## zacnelson (Oct 30, 2016)

It seems like an awful lot of complicated work for something that yields only a tiny fraction of a cent per play. Especially if it's a 10 or 20 minute episode of a TV show or a webisode, using dozens of cues.


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## Greg (Oct 30, 2016)

Adrev and PRO youtube royalties are completely different. Adrev puts claims on videos that use your music and monetize them with the google ad system on your behalf. The money there can potentially be staggering. I wouldn't doubt that Audiomachine or Two steps from hell can pull in $30k + a month.

It is incredibly easy to collect. Make an account with ad-rev and send them your masters. They take 15-20% off the top and pay quarterly.

Monetizing trailers that use your music though is a bit shady. I am really surprised the studios haven't quite figured it out yet. Even more surprised that a big publisher would risk doing it. You're monetizing content that you don't own and even already issued a license for. I think they could easily sue you for that?

To my knowledge, there is no current system that can split up the Ad-rev money to several assets. That's a big grey area that needs to be figured out.. I think it's whatever asset claims it first. Doing it manually is probably a huge advantage.

If you want to claim ad-rev yourself, you must own the copyright and the master. Some publishers don't even know about the system yet. I would ask them to carve Ad-rev rights out of your contract and claim it yourself.


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## Greg (Oct 30, 2016)

chillbot said:


> No idea how youtube tallies viewers, if IP addresses matters... but at the rate I got paid, if you watched it nonstop for a full year (assuming it's 3 minutes long) you would watch it 175,200 times and that would generate around $15.65 for you. Worth it?



Google has gaming the system pretty well under control. They log ips for sure and furthermore will ban and blacklist your ass for trying it


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## dannymc (Oct 31, 2016)

> Adrev and PRO youtube royalties are completely different. Adrev puts claims on videos that use your music and monetize them with the google ad system on your behalf. The money there can potentially be staggering. I wouldn't doubt that Audiomachine or Two steps from hell can pull in $30k + a month.



my god are you serious? 30K a month, but where is all this money coming from, who pay's this out? does Adrev collect and if so does the composer need to register wit Adrev? 

Danny


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## Greg (Nov 3, 2016)

dannymc said:


> my god are you serious? 30K a month, but where is all this money coming from, who pay's this out? does Adrev collect and if so does the composer need to register wit Adrev?
> 
> Danny



Google pays a split from all the money their advertisers invest in Youtube ads.

You have to own the cue and register it with Adrev (or another company but I'd say Adrev is the biggest and best)


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## rickholets (Nov 12, 2016)

One of my recently published soundtracks (through CDBaby) generated $66 through Rumblefish for about 74K Youtube plays on various tracks earlier this year. Funny thing is, I never could figure out where the tracks were placed, or how they got there.

If I understand correctly, CDBaby Pro is using their partners (such as Rumblefish) do to the same thing AdRev is doing. The plus there is that I didn't have to get my content placed in any libraries or databases; they're handling it in addition to the standard CDBaby distribution.


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## Arbee (Nov 12, 2016)

"Youtube royalties?Yes or no?" Yes


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