
How do you find the copyright owner of a song? In fact, there are two (or more) rights owners to a given piece of recorded music - the rights to the written song (including the composer, lyricist, and/or music publisher) and the rights to the particular recording (the record label and performer/s.) However, it’s not a matter of just contacting the artist or record label.

The first step in getting permission to use recorded material is determining who owns the copyright of the intellectual property and contacting them. How to get permission to use a song in your video? To avoid the legal headaches (and potentially expensive fees and settlements) you’ll need to make sure you have explicit permission from the copyright holder to use any music. For example, if you post your video on YouTube, you could get a copyright strike against your account or have the audio on your video muted (and yes, that’s even if you’re just using it as background music in your YouTube videos) Any ad money might be given to the copyright holder, or in a worst case scenario, you could get sued. But you might also face more severe consequences. What might happen if you don’t get permission?īest case scenario, if you don’t get copyright permission to use a piece of music in your video, you might be asked to take it down.

Even just tracking down the owner can be tricky, but this guide will walk you through how to legally use copyrighted music. This is the best way to not run into any copyright issues – but doing so isn’t always easy. The fact is that unless your video is only for your personal use (as in, not sharing it online anywhere) you must get permission from the copyright holder to use any music on YouTube.

You might think that if you don’t intend to monetize your video or if you’re just making a fan video, you’re in the clear to use copyrighted music on YouTube. Copyright law is a complicated topic, but get it wrong and you could end up in hot water (we’re talking copyright infringement hot).
