Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Youtube Monetization With AudioSwap / Library

Yesterday I posted on this blog about my problem monetizing a video that included my very own music.

This morning, I thought to myself: I just want to make cooking videos, not impress people with my own music. So I should use royalty free music available in the Youtube library and forget about my own music.

So I used the "AudioSwap" or Audio Swap option. It's the easiest way to change music that Youtube thinks is copyright infringement into music that they say is "available for monetization".

When I was done and the video had processed for half an hour, no monetization button was there. I was utterly unable to monetize my video. Only then did I find out that you need to:


  1. Download the music from the Youtube library instead of using Audio Swap
  2. Cut audio and video together using external software (windows movie maker)
  3. Upload the whole video on Youtube (again)
  4. Hope that the robots at Youtube realize that the song is FREE
  5. Explain to the Youtube robots that your music is FREE in case they ask!
  6. Hope and pray that they will get it
In case that the Youtube robots consider your video copyright infringement, you lose. You can not get in touch with human beings when sorting out copyright claims. It's all software doing automatic steps.

So what did I learn from this? Well, after uploading my own video with audio that I totally own, but being forbidden to monetize it (the robots think I stole music, which I didn't) and using music that is supposed to be free but doesn't allow monetization the quick way (instead: downloading and uploading again), I thought I am going to spare myself yet another disappointment.

And that disappointment would be:

  • I download free music from the library
  • I cut the whole video and free music together
  • I upload the whole video again
  • Youtube tells me that there is copyright infringement and asks me for proof that I hold rights
  • I tell Youtube that it's a free song from the library (artist name, song)
  • Youtube tells me it's "not enough verification" and asks for written permission from the artist
  • I explode with raging anger

No, I won't do this. I found my own solution. I am indeed going to record music again, but it's not going to be extremely well-produced music this time, just a bunch of chords and a song played in an ambient / calm way... hoping I won't accidentally play two notes in a row that were already used in that order before in the history of commercial music.

My advice to you: If you need to have music, choose a song from the Youtube library beforehand, download it, put it into your video, and if youtube asks, have the artist name and the song ready. But if it doesn't work, forget about the whole music thing... you aren't going to monetize anything unless it's your own music that doesn't even remotely sound professional! Sometimes your music may sound professional but then you have to be lucky that Youtube doesn't mistake it for an actual chartbreaker.

Edit: I finally found a solution.

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