Once you’ve purchased a license from our website, you’re allowed to sign up to a music distribution website such as DistroKid, TuneCore, CDBaby, etc. and distribute your recorded song over our beat through their website (you should only choose one distributor to release your music). These distribution companies will place your music on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon, and other digital stores and streaming apps.
When you purchase a beat license you’re allowed a certain amount of digital/physical sales, monetized audio streams, and video usage rights depending on which license you purchased. Yes, you can post your music video on YouTube or use the beat you purchased as background music in your video, do not confuse that with what this article is about; YouTube Content ID.
YouTube Content ID is something totally separate that these companies offer as an optional service to submit your recorded song to, you usually have to pay an extra cost for this service. For example, TuneCore offers YouTube Content ID for a fee of $10, DistroKid offers the same service for $4.99 per track per year; you would have to manually purchase this service and submit your recorded song into YouTube Content ID. Submitting your recorded song into YouTube Content ID is not allowed with any license purchased from our company. Here are some examples:
TuneCore’s YouTube Content ID: https://www.tunecore.com/artist-services/youtube-sound-recording
DistroKid’s YouTube Content ID: https://distrokid.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013535314-What-is-YouTube-Money-
CDBaby’s YouTube Content ID: https://cdbaby.com/social-video-monetization.aspx
What is YouTube Content ID?
YouTube Content ID takes the recorded song you submit and automatically matches your song with videos across the entire YouTube platform that use the same music as your song and these distribution companies then monetize those other videos. If we allowed clients to do this it would create a major issue because artists would be claiming other artist’s videos and no one would be able to monetize their own video, if say, they purchased an Unlimited License or Exclusive License (these licenses do allow you to monetize your own video through YouTube directly). Notice we said “monetize your video through YouTube directly”, this means becoming a partner on YouTube which gives your YouTube account access to direct video monetization. More information about the YouTube Partner Program can be found at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72851
It’s definitely a confusing subject, a lot of people don’t understand exactly what YouTube Content ID is and we believe the music distribution companies have a responsibility to be more transparent with their clients by explaining that you must own 100% of the copyright to all of the music before you submit your song into the YouTube Content ID service. When you license a beat from our website we retain our copyright to the beat, you’re basically “leasing” our beat and then given specific commercial rights for what you can do with our beat.
In summary, you can sign up with Distrokid, TuneCore, CDBaby, or any other music distribution website and create a single or album and have them release your single/album on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon, etc. You’re allowed a certain amount of digital/physical sales, monetized audio streams, video usage rights, etc. (depending on which license you purchased, details will be in your licensing contract). What you cannot do is submit your recorded song over our beat or our beat by itself into YouTube Content ID or any other similar audio fingerprinting service.
If you have any questions or concerns about this you can always send us an e-mail and we’ll get back to you.
When you purchase a beat license you’re allowed a certain amount of digital/physical sales, monetized audio streams, and video usage rights depending on which license you purchased. Yes, you can post your music video on YouTube or use the beat you purchased as background music in your video, do not confuse that with what this article is about; YouTube Content ID.
YouTube Content ID is something totally separate that these companies offer as an optional service to submit your recorded song to, you usually have to pay an extra cost for this service. For example, TuneCore offers YouTube Content ID for a fee of $10, DistroKid offers the same service for $4.99 per track per year; you would have to manually purchase this service and submit your recorded song into YouTube Content ID. Submitting your recorded song into YouTube Content ID is not allowed with any license purchased from our company. Here are some examples:
TuneCore’s YouTube Content ID: https://www.tunecore.com/artist-services/youtube-sound-recording
DistroKid’s YouTube Content ID: https://distrokid.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013535314-What-is-YouTube-Money-
CDBaby’s YouTube Content ID: https://cdbaby.com/social-video-monetization.aspx
What is YouTube Content ID?
YouTube Content ID takes the recorded song you submit and automatically matches your song with videos across the entire YouTube platform that use the same music as your song and these distribution companies then monetize those other videos. If we allowed clients to do this it would create a major issue because artists would be claiming other artist’s videos and no one would be able to monetize their own video, if say, they purchased an Unlimited License or Exclusive License (these licenses do allow you to monetize your own video through YouTube directly). Notice we said “monetize your video through YouTube directly”, this means becoming a partner on YouTube which gives your YouTube account access to direct video monetization. More information about the YouTube Partner Program can be found at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72851
It’s definitely a confusing subject, a lot of people don’t understand exactly what YouTube Content ID is and we believe the music distribution companies have a responsibility to be more transparent with their clients by explaining that you must own 100% of the copyright to all of the music before you submit your song into the YouTube Content ID service. When you license a beat from our website we retain our copyright to the beat, you’re basically “leasing” our beat and then given specific commercial rights for what you can do with our beat.
In summary, you can sign up with Distrokid, TuneCore, CDBaby, or any other music distribution website and create a single or album and have them release your single/album on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon, etc. You’re allowed a certain amount of digital/physical sales, monetized audio streams, video usage rights, etc. (depending on which license you purchased, details will be in your licensing contract). What you cannot do is submit your recorded song over our beat or our beat by itself into YouTube Content ID or any other similar audio fingerprinting service.
If you have any questions or concerns about this you can always send us an e-mail and we’ll get back to you.
