With Creator Music, some songs can be licensed, which means creators pay an upfront fee (or no fee for some tracks) to use music in their video and keep the video’s full revenue share.
Find music to license
To find tracks you can license:
- Sign in toYouTube Studioin a web browser.
- From the left menu, selectCreator Music
.
- On theHomeorBrowsepages, go to the search bar
and enter search terms, such as song title or artist name.
- Check theLicense availablebox at the top of your search results.
- On theHomepage, you can find licensable tracks inFeatured licensable tracks.
- Licensable tracks are listed with a price next to them.
- If you don’t want to buy a license, licensable tracks may also be eligible to share revenue if your video meets therevenue sharing usage requirements.
Get a license
Once you find a licensable track, there a few ways you can license it:
- In Creator Music
- During upload
- After upload
To license tracks in Creator Music:
- Sign in toYouTube Studioin a web browser.
- From the left menu, selectCreator Music
- Find a trackyou want to license.
- Click "More actions"
Buy license.
- Review the license details.
- Paid licenses:ClickBUY LICENSE
- No-cost licenses:ClickDOWNLOAD.
- Paid licenses:ClickBUY LICENSE
- To use the license,add the licenseto your video during upload.
When you upload a video that uses a Creator Music track, you need to add the license information to the video file you’re uploading. You can also buy a license at upload if you haven’t done that yet. You can do all of this from theVideo Elementspage:
- Startuploading a videoin a web browser.
- On theVideo Elementspage, in theAdd music licensessection, clickADD.
- Find the tracks you used in the video you’re uploading.
- ClickPurchasedfor tracks you’ve already purchased.
- ClickDownloadedfor tracks you’ve downloaded.
- ClickSavedfor tracks you’ve saved to your library.
- ForDownloadedorSavedtracks, click the price. ForPurchasedtracks, clickADDand skip to Step 6.
- Review the license details.
- Paid licenses:ClickBUY LICENSE
- No-cost licenses:ClickADD LICENSE.
- Paid licenses:ClickBUY LICENSE
- Review theVideo copyright detailspage to confirm the license was added to your video.
- To add more licenses, repeat Steps 2-5 above.
- ClickRETURN TO UPLOADto finish the upload process.
Keep in mind:
- You can also add licenses from theCheckspage if Creator Music tracks are found in the Checks process. On theCheckspage, clickADD LICENSEand complete the licensing steps.If you’ve already added a license on theVideo Elementspage, the license will appear on theCheckspage.
- On theVisibilitypage, if your video’sprivacy settingsare set toPrivateorUnlisted,or if a video is aDraft,any licenses you’ve added can be removed and added to other videos. This can’t be done once a video is set toPublic.Learn how toremove licenses.
Licensing tracks after upload is possible for a short amount of time after a video is published. To get a license after upload:
- Sign in toYouTube Studioin a web browser.
- From the left menu, selectContent
.
- Find the video with the track you want to license.
- Click the video thumbnail.
- From the left menu, selectCopyright
.
- Paid licenses:ClickBUY LICENSE
- No-cost licenses:ClickADD LICENSE.
- Paid licenses:ClickBUY LICENSE
Remove a license
If a video’sprivacy settingsare set toPrivateorUnlisted,or if a video is aDraft,any licenses that were added to that video can be removed and added to other videos. This can’t be done once a video is set toPublic.
To remove a license:
- Sign in toYouTube Studioin a web browser.
- From the left menu, selectContent
- Find the video that has the license you want to remove.
- In theRestrictionscolumn, hover overLicense added.
- ClickREVIEW.
- ClickActions
- ClickREMOVE LICENSE.