"[YouTube's] system of Content ID and Audio Swap work fine for music that is owned and licensed by one company – think the major record labels. However, it totally breaks down when working with music licensed to multiple sources – think royalty-free music."

This excerpt from Larry Jordan's Blog article Keep Yourself Copyright Legal points out a problem that has affected many producers that have used royalty free music on YouTube. As Larry points out in his article we have put up a page in our support section to help with a YouTube content id dispute, should you have one. The current version of that page is copied below.

It’s important to note that not all tracks trigger this issue. Usually it should only happen with certain tracks that have been licensed to other parties under conflicting license conditions. SmartSound has thousands of tracks in its library, but this conflict only happens to a small percentage of them.

royalty free music for youtube



Since we have non-exclusive agreements with some of our composers, they can also sell/distribute their music through other channels that may or may not be royalty free. However, if you purchased the music from SmartSound or it came with one of our authorized plug-ins, it is properly licensed for use in YouTube videos. If you received a notice from YouTube regarding the music in your video, whether it be for a copyright claim or for monetization purposes, please follow the steps below so we can assist in getting the claim released. 

Step 1 - Dispute the claim with YouTube

First, if the claim only refers to copyright infringement, you can dispute the claim directly. Reply through the proper channels that YouTube provides, informing them that you have used Royalty-Free music from SmartSound in your videos, and include a link to our music license in your response:

http://www.smartsound.com/products/licenseinfo.html

We are working on the monetization issue and hope to update this soon for guidance regarding that. Until then, this will help you with copyright claims issues.

Step 2 - Email us with the appropriate information

Next, please send an email to licensing@smartsound.com so that we can help you address the issue. We will verify the music use and provide you with a customized document supporting your use of SmartSound music in your video(s). If applicable, we will also contact the 3rd party claiming the copyright to ensure that the music is removed from their ContentID catalog to hopefully prevent such claims in the future. In order to process your claim, you must include the following information in your email: 

1) A full link to your video on YouTube
- If the claim refers to multiple videos, please include a link to each video in question

2) A listing of the SmartSound music tracks that were used in the video(s) 
- If you are submitting multiple videos, we need to know what SmartSound music was used in each video

3) The verbiage from the YouTube claim 
- Please copy and paste the text of the YouTube claim, so that we can ensure we are addressing the appropriate issues

4) The name of the 3rd party company that is claiming the copyright 
- If applicable, include the company name so that we can contact them and have them remove our royalty-free music from their ContendID catalog

To avoid delays, please be sure to include all of this information in your email. You will hear back from us within 1-2 business days with a customized document to support your use of SmartSound music in your video that you can provide to YouTube.