# YouTube Royalties - how do PRO's monitor and collect them?



## rgames (Oct 15, 2013)

I've never paid much attention to YouTube but was recently contacted by a fellow who wanted to license one of my tracks for a YouTube video. That got me to thinking - I know people get royalties from YouTube but I have no idea how they're tracked by the PRO's.

Do people file cue sheets for YouTube videos?

There's an "Internet" section on my ASCAP statements but I have no idea how ASCAP gets the play info. I've had several tracks show up on YouTube (commercials) but have never seen any royalties.

I know services like TuneSat track it but the PRO's don't accept TuneSat tracks, so how do the PRO's know whose music is being played when?

rgames


----------



## Greg (Oct 15, 2013)

I haven't heard of PRO's collecting payments for Youtube placements yet, I'll have to look that up. I also have had placements on youtube commercials but nothing on my statement yet. (BMI)

I do know that a big way to make income off of Youtube is using a 3rd party to track usages and then monetize that usage on your behalf by placing an advertisement on the video. The alternative to this would be requesting the video to be removed, but that of course doesn't benefit anyone.

I personally use www.adrev.net to manage my music in this domain and vouch for them 100% 

However this wouldn't pertain to music licensed to clients of course. Only un-licensed usages.

Hope that helps


----------



## autopilot (Oct 15, 2013)

For composing copyright, in Australia (and this is from memory) Youtube report the top 2000 or so videos to APRA (the local PRO) and that is then distributed to members from there. 

I did a web series that had a huge amount of views (when you added up all the episodes), and so lodged an unlogged performance claim which Apra sorted at this end. 

There is also a royalty Youtube pay to the video maker which is a cut of the advertising (and this I imagine is much higher than whatever your PRO would be collecting) - I don't know how that works, but you would need to negotiate a cut of that with the owner of the video copyright.


----------



## gsilbers (Oct 15, 2013)

yes. how is it that youtube/googles make so much money using our works and most if not all of us really knows? 
hope bmi/ascap are trying to capitalize and set rules with govmtns so laws are in place before the huge tech companies decide they dont wanna pay that much at all. 

anyways...

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/seven-ways-musicians-make-money-off-youtube-20130919 (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... e-20130919)


----------



## Nathan Allen Pinard (Oct 24, 2013)

They don't.

Content ID is what causes you to make money from music in people's videos. But it's not 100% perfect. You can claim the copyright of a video. the video maker gets a notice to acknowledge it.

Once they acknowledge it, the video stays up, but YOU get the monetization (only if the video is monetized and the YouTuber is a real partner). This doesn't always work right though, as some videos it won't match, OR you can claim a copyright because someone played your song for 5 minutes in a 3 hour podcast.

Many gamers have stopped playing game trailers for upcoming games because some bigger gaming companies like Square Enix have claimed copyright for YouTube videos that show the trailer. Even if it's in a vidcast that's 3 hours long, and they are advertising the game for them.

There are also services like Rumblefish that will match content ID for you, but if you are a composer for a client that puts their work on YouTube, with your music in it. You need to be careful, as they can get flagged also.

You can also report a copyright violation on a video, but don't go doing this. 3 strikes on a YouTuber cuts their channel, which no hope of getting it back. If you don't like someone posting your music, message them first. Most are fine with taking things down.


----------



## doctornine (Oct 24, 2013)

I get Youtube royalties from tracks I have with Audio Network.

As far as I am aware, they are the only Library Publisher doing this.


----------

