How To Monetize Your Music on YouTube

Do you upload your music on YouTube often and are still unable to generate income? If yes, then you are one of the thousands of music artists that struggle with monetization through your YouTube channel. No doubt, the platform, if utilized to your advantage, can be an important source of passive income. However, it is important to note that YouTube is a platform, among many others, and the dynamics may change if your channel doesn’t upload music content as regularly as possible. 

So, how do you generate music revenue through YouTube? 

YouTube Content ID

Music monetization refers to the method of identifying your music (or other audio or visual content) once it appears in a video posted on social platforms such as YouTube or Facebook, and then collecting revenue from that usage. That revenue can be generated regardless of who uploads the video with your composition.

These videos are known as User-Generated Content (UGC), and they can lead to legitimate payouts without you having to take any action. Content ID can monetize different types of media such as compositions based on sound recordings, visual content, or official music videos of your singles or album. 

How does it identify your music?

Many users upload videos that have your music playing, and there are various artists whose music is used just like yours. So, how does Content ID recognize your music? Through this ID, the platform, YouTube listens to your music through your videos, be it official audio with lyrics or an official video. Then, YouTube remembers your song/track and searches for any user-generated content that uses the same song/track. After finding such content, YouTube places ads in these videos whenever possible for you to incur income.

The uploading and biometric identification of "assets" and reference files to YouTube's Content Management System (or CMS) for Content ID scanning and monetization are how the Content ID process works. For this to happen, it can around two weeks for any freshly brewed content of yours to be scanned against every asset on YouTube. 

Once a video is recognized as comprising something that was originally yours, YouTube will act following the content owner’s (your) policies. YouTube configures audio content on its servers after it is uploaded. It accomplishes this by scanning each video for visuals and audio that match not only other user-generated videos on YouTube but also all types of copyrighted audio and visual content. This occurs irrespective of whether or not the content is posted by the owner.

Google Adsense

Since your music revenue would be generated based on ads that YouTube would place in videos that utilize your original audio or video, make sure you have the authority to decide what sort of ads go on these UGC. You could do this by using Google Adsense. Nevertheless, you can only commercialize videos you've uploaded to your own channel, and you must already be a member of the YouTube Partner Program. 

What kind of music can you monetize?

Did you get a copyright? Then, you got your money! Let’s get this. You can maximize any piece of music over which you own the master recording and publishing rights. Since sound recordings and compositions are both ad-supported on YouTube, you have to own both. So, if your songs are completely original, you're set! 

However, you cannot monetize on music that is sampled from someone else’s work, or if the music is not entirely original. Since the owners of the original versions may have already uploaded it to YouTube to commercialize it, and Content ID cannot distinguish between the two. It will attempt to monetize what you have opted in, and because you do not have the right to monetize, it will simply create a mess. So, make sure you get your rules and guidelines right.

Speaking of monetization and passive income, read our blog article: How To Make Money From Music. 

YouTube Ad Revenue

The AdSense Auction is used to place ads on YouTube. This is the point at which the content is linked to the specific advertising. The bid is almost entirely automated and is based on factors such as demographics, video channel type, and perhaps most importantly, the number of views that particular video is receiving on average.

Advertising agencies establish policies for the amount they are willing to pay for videos with different stages of viewership, and within these policies are the ad types they want to run. If users post a video (or have content in a video) that receives a rapid increase in views, you will see that video advances through the ad types as the views increase. Your income will rise as a result of your increase in popularity.

YouTube monetization may appear to be tricky, but once you understand the process and take appropriate decisions, generating income through your YouTube content will become easier as time progresses!