If you’ve been on YouTube long enough, you already know that copyrighted music is usually the first thing that kills your monetization. One track in the background - and suddenly a whole video’s revenue is siphoned off to a label you’ve never heard of. So let’s cut to the chase and talk about how to legally use music on YouTube without losing monetization.
First, Accept This: You Don’t Get to “Wing It” With Music
YouTube’s copyright and monetization systems sit on top of Content ID, a recognition system that compares your audio against a database of registered music and then allows rights holders to decide what to do: block, claim revenue, track, or share. A copyright claim isn’t the same as a strike, but it will still hurt. The result for you is always one of four outcomes:
- No claim → you keep full monetization.
- Claim, but allowed → video stays up, but revenue goes to the music owner.
- Claim and shared → Creator Music–style revenue split.
- Block → video unavailable in some or all regions.
Strikes are, naturally, much worse. On one strike, your video will get taken down, on the second (before the first one expires), your channel will stay restricted for another 90 days, third strike means you’re out. Your channel will be automatically deleted, all content removed, and you’ll be banned from creating new channels.
In more serious cases, legal action might follow. So, you might want to avoid DMCA strikes.
As YouTube Help explains, claims usually come from the automatic Content ID system or manual reports. However, strikes tend to come from formal takedown requests, usually filed by a music label, publisher, or distributor.
What About the Money?
If you get a copyright claim, your ad revenue will go to the music rights holder if they choose this option. This is how creators usually end up with no payouts, even though their video had gathered a decent amount of views.
Although your video will stay in the public’s eye, you won’t make a penny out of it. Some claims offer revenue sharing through Creator Music, but that’s only the case with pre-approved, licensed tracks.
The worst part about this is that you won’t know if there’s a copyright issue until after the video is uploaded and getting views. To keep your money, you need to have full music rights before publishing. Because no license means you’ll get no revenue.
Source: VidIQ
Know What You’re Actually Licensing
Any song has (at least) two separate rights:
- Sound recording (master) - the specific recorded performance.
- Musical composition (publishing) - the underlying song: melody, lyrics, harmony.
On YouTube, either or both of these can be registered in Content ID. That’s why you sometimes see two claims on one song.
When you “buy music,” “license a track,” or “use a library,” you are not automatically licensing everything forever. You’re licensing specific rights, for specific uses, on specific platforms.
If those terms don’t explicitly say “commercial use on YouTube, including monetized videos,” you’re playing roulette.
On ‘Fair Use’
You might say, ‘but there’s fair use, and it might save my video’. While yes, fair use lets you use copyrighted material, but only in some cases. YouTube won’t protect you unless your video qualifies for that. Aka, you might be a news or commentary channel. But even then, the rules depend on the country you reside in.
You think using a short, 10-second music part might be safe, but that’s not always the case. Adding a background track or trimming it down doesn’t make it fair use. If your content isn’t clearly transformative, you’re very likely to lose your monetization on that particular video.
Source: Stephen McLeod
The Safest Lanes: How to Use Music and Stay Monetized
So, how do you actually use music in your videos without getting copyright strikes or claims? Well, you have two options to go about it: the tools that YouTube already offers and third-party libraries. Let’s start with on-platform tools.
YouTube Audio Library
The YouTube Audio Library might be the most boring answer for the creator, but it’s a relatively safe one.
- You can access it via YouTube Studio.
- It includes royalty-free music and sound effects cleared for use in monetized videos.
- Some tracks require attribution, others don’t; check the License type column to make sure.
Important nuance:
- These tracks are cleared for YouTube. That does not automatically mean you can reuse the same music on TikTok, Instagram, or client projects. Permissions can change, so using them off-platform is risky.
- Keep a simple log: track name, URL, and date added to your project. If there’s ever a mistaken claim, you have things written down.
For a lot of channels (education, commentary, tutorials), you could run your entire catalog off this library and never worry about losing monetization to music.
YouTube Creator Music
Now, Creator Music is a relatively new thing on YouTube. The way it works is that YouTube now offers two main ways to use commercial music (popular tracks) for those with YouTube’s Partner Program (YPP):
- Upfront License
- You pay a fee per track upfront.
- In return, you keep your normal creator share of ad revenue (typically 55% on long-form), minus any specified adjustments.
- License duration and terms are shown in the Usage details.
- Revenue Sharing
- No upfront fee.
- You share ad revenue with the rights holder.
- There are “restricted usage” rules: for example, a track may allow up to 30 seconds in a video 3+ minutes long. If you exceed those limits without a proper license, you lose protection against claims.
Source: YouTube Creators
Third-Party Royalty-Free Libraries
There are many subscription libraries with different specifics to them, but let’s discuss the most popular options to pick from:
1. Epidemic Sound
This one is one of the most popular libraries of royalty-free music, and for a good reason.
Epidemic Sound offers over 32,000 tracks and 60,000 sound effects, where you get 100% copyright-cleared tracks. And, get this, AIR Media-Tech partners get all of that completely free to use!
This is how you do it:
- Join AIR Media-Tech and gain free access to Epidemic Sound’s extensive library.
- Pick the track for your video!
- Integrate it into your content without the fear of getting copyright strikes.
2. Soundstripe
If you’re looking for a studio-quality vibe, look no further. Soundstripe has it. It’s a great option to get access to Grammy-winning music, all cleared for monetization. The sub will cost you $19,99/mo at the least. The AI editing tool will help you implement the track into your content.
What’s more, is that you can use their tracks across all the big platforms, and we’re talking Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, you name it.
3. Artlist
If you’re going for cinematic and emotional, then Artlist is one of the best choices out there. You get thousands of high-quality tracks, all cleared for use. The sub will cost you $9/mo for the cheapest option.
There are many more subscription-based libraries, which we have reviewed already. The specifics of these libraries might vary, so be sure to check everything before committing!
Custom / Commissioned Music
If your brand is big enough (or niche enough), commissioning original music is a strong long-term play. When you hire a composer, you get a written agreement that clearly grants you:
- Sync rights (to pair music with video)
- Commercial rights for monetized YouTube content
- Clarification on Content ID
The last one is crucial. We’ve seen creators pay for “original” tracks, only to have the composer register everything in Content ID later and start auto-claiming the creator’s own catalog.
If you’re paying custom rates, you should also be buying clarity and control.
Public Domain & Creative Commons (Advanced Only)
These categories sound safer than they really are.
- Public Domain: Only works if the recording is PD, not just the composition. Using a modern orchestral recording of a public-domain symphony still requires rights to the recording itself.
- Creative Commons:
- CC-BY / CC-BY-SA: Often okay for monetized YouTube as long as you give attribution and respect share-alike terms.
- CC-BY-NC (Non-Commercial): Not compatible with monetized YouTube.
- CC-BY-ND (No Derivatives): Risky, since syncing music to video is often considered a derivative use.
Unless you’re very comfortable reading licenses and tracking compliance, CC is easy to mess up at scale. For most pro creators, Audio Library / Creator Music / paid libraries are lower-risk.
The Dangerous Myths That Will Get Your Ad Revenue Nuked
Let’s address some of the most common myths we see creators fall for time and time again.
Myth 1: “You can use 5 / 10 / 30 seconds. That’s fair use.”
There’s no actual magic number of seconds that makes copyrighted music legal to use without permission. YouTube’s own help docs state clearly: even a few seconds can cause issues, and ‘fair use’ is a legal defense determined in court, not by a YouTube upload.
Shorter clips might reduce your chances of being flagged, but with Content ID in play, it’s as good as an illusion of safety.
Myth 2: “But I credited the artist, so it’s fine.”
While attribution is a polite thing to do, it’s not the same as having a license.
Credit doesn’t equal permission. Rights holders can and will still copyright you.
Myth 3: “I’ll just dispute as fair use if they claim me.”
For commentary on music itself (so we’re talking music reviews and breakdowns), you can sometimes make a fair use case. For background music in vlogs, tutorials, or gaming videos, it’s not the case.
Even if you’re right in theory, YouTube is not a court. Your dispute goes to the claimant, and if they reject, your options are limited unless you’re ready to escalate.
Shorts, Long-Form, and Why the Source of Your Audio Matters
Creators get into trouble by mixing in-app audio and edited audio without thinking about rights.
For Shorts
Using music from the in-app Shorts music picker generally means the track is licensed for Shorts use. Monetization logic is a bit different, however: music rights holders and creators share from a common Shorts ad revenue pool, and you don’t control that split.
That clearance doesn’t automatically extend to:
- Long-form uploads with the same audio
- Other platforms
- Brand campaigns using your Short elsewhere
For Long-Form
Grabbing a viral sound from TikTok, ripping it, and dropping it under your long-form YouTube video is a fast way to get claimed or blocked. If you want consistent monetization, long-form content should rely on:
- Audio Library
- Creator Music (license or revenue share)
- Properly licensed third-party music
Our Rules of Thumb for Music Without Losing Monetization
If we had to boil this down for working creators:
- Default to pre-cleared sources: YouTube Audio Library, Creator Music, reputable royalty-free libraries that understand Content ID.
- Treat Creator Music like a real tool: pay upfront when predictability matters; use revenue share when you can afford thinner margins.
- Never rely on “short clips” or “credit” as a legal strategy.
- Document everything: if it isn’t logged, future-you will hate present-you during a claim wave.
- When in doubt, swap the track before you upload. Re-exporting today is cheaper than losing monetization on a video that pops a year from now.
And if you need help with clearing any copyright claims or getting royalty-free music, call the AIR brigade!
We offer services and solutions for all YouTube-related problems. After working with over 3,000 YouTube channels, we know all the ins and outs of this business. You have an issue? We have a solution that works!
