Skip to main content

YouTube may finally loosen its rigid rules around copyrighted music

YouTube video creators could one day have the option to use copyrighted music in their videos and still earn money on their videos.

Expanding Partnerships with the Music Industry, Subscribers from Posts, and Studio Mobile Navigation

According to a YouTube video posted on Tuesday by the Creator Insider YouTube channel (a channel that shares updates from the “YouTube Creator technical team”), YouTube is currently testing giving its creators the option to include “copyrighted content” from the platform’s music industry partners. Not only that, but creators are also expected to be able to earn money on these videos.

And according to a YouTube Help article on the matter, this access to copyrighted music option is a current “feature experiment” that YouTube is still working on and is only being tested “with a limited set of creators” right now. More information about this feature is expected to come out “in the coming months.”

Getting demonetized on videos has been a constant struggle for creators on the YouTube platform over the years — a pretty stark contrast to other social media platforms.

If all of this sounds familiar to you, you’re not alone. YouTube isn’t the only platform trying to allow its creators to use copyrighted music in their videos. Facebook is doing it too. Just last week, Facebook launched its own Music Revenue Sharing program that allows its creators to still earn revenue on videos in which they added licensed music. Facebook’s Music Revenue Sharing program lets creators earn a 20% revenue share if they use licensed music (from Facebook’s music library) in their videos.

Now that YouTube is now working on letting its own creators have access to copyrighted music, it seems more and more likely that this recent push from social media platforms to encourage their users to create more original content isn’t going away anytime soon. At least not while TikTok continues to succeed with its constant flow of original videos, that are often shared on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

Anita George
Anita has been a technology reporter since 2013 and currently writes for the Computing section at Digital Trends. She began…
What is Ambient Mode on YouTube?
The red and white YouTube logo on a phone screen. The phone is on a white background.

YouTube recently announced a number of changes to its video-watching interface. One of these changes is a new feature known as Ambient Mode.

In this guide, we'll go over exactly what Ambient Mode on YouTube is and show you how to enable or disable it.
What is Ambient Mode on YouTube?
Ambient Mode is basically a lighting effect that surrounds a given YouTube video with a soft, glowing light that usually reflects the colors featured in the video itself. The effect kind of resembles the glow of a television screen in a room where the lights are off (which YouTube has said was the inspiration for the effect). YouTube also said that Ambient Mode is supposed to make the video-watching experience of its dark mode "more immersive." Ambient Mode was officially announced in late-October 2022 and is available on the web, Android, and iOS.

Read more
YouTube is rolling out handles. Here’s what you need to know
The red and white YouTube logo on a phone screen. The phone is on a white background.

YouTube recently announced that it would be rolling out handles for YouTube channels. Whether you've just heard about them or you already got an email from YouTube saying it's time to choose one, you're probably wondering what they are and how they're different from YouTube channel names.

In this guide, we'll go over what a YouTube handle is and answer a few questions about them so you can better understand what they are and be better prepared to choose one when it's rolled out to you.

Read more
YouTube brings pinch to zoom and video navigation changes to everyone
The red and white YouTube logo on a phone screen. The phone is on a white background.

YouTube is updating its user interface with a slew of changes, and chief among them are the pinch-to-zoom feature and "precise" video navigation.

On Monday, YouTube announced quite a few updates to its viewing experience on mobile and web. Notably, the video-sharing platform said that it was finally "launching pinch to zoom and precise seeking to all users starting today."

Read more