Buyers Guide to YouTube Content ID & Copyright Notices for AGsoundtrax Music

What is Content ID?

Content ID is a popular digital fingerprinting system that content creators can use to easily identify and manage their copyrighted content on YouTube. Videos uploaded to YouTube are compared against audio and video files registered with Content ID by content owners, looking for any matches.

When a video is matched to Content ID registered content, a copyright notice will appear on the video, and the content owner may choose to take certain actions, such as:

• Clearing the claim and taking no further action
• Tracking the video’s viewership statistics
• Monetizing the video by running ads against it
• Muting the audio that matches their music
• Or even blocking a whole video from being viewed

What is AdRev?

AdRev (and other companies such as Audiam, TuneCore, etc) are YouTube Partner platforms that use the Content ID system to manage and administer this copyrighted content on behalf of content owners. They in turn provide users with various information such as which videos their content is used in, tracking of unauthorized uses, viewership reports, and distribution of any monetization earnings.

Many online based music composers have their content digitally fingerprinted via Content ID to help protect against unauthorized uses, and also use these YouTube Partner platforms to administer and manage their content.

What does this mean for me and my YouTube projects?

When a video is uploaded to YouTube that contains licensed, digitally fingerprinted music, a“matched third party content” copyright notice will appear alongside the uploaded video in the YouTube Video Manager (this typically appears shortly after uploading).

A copyright notice does not mean that copyrights have been infringed, and this shouldn’t be confused with a YouTube “copyright strike”. It’s simply a notice to advise that YouTube has detected Content ID registered content within the video, and that further information/action is needed.

Again, if you’ve licensed the music from AGsoundtrax, you will be easily able to clear this notice and you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

How to clear a YouTube copyright notice

Clearing a YouTube copyright notice is a very straightforward process. You can remove copyright notices in the following ways:

1. Disputing the claim via YouTube’s built-in form.
2. If the music is administered via AdRev, using the AdRev Claim Clearance page is the quickest and most direct way to clear a claim. AdRev will send you an email confirmation once it has been cleared.
3. Or by contacting me directly with a link to your YouTube video, where I can further assist with having the copyright notices removed as quickly as possible.

To clear a claim via YouTube, you simply need to let YouTube know that you have licensed the music and have the rights to use it. Simply choose to “dispute” the claim by clicking the “matched third party content” copyright notice next to the video in your Video Manager, or on your dedicatedcopyright notices page. After you click “file a dispute”, select the option “I have a license or written permission from the proper rights holder to use this material”.

Once you submit the dispute, claims are usually cleared within 24–96 hours. If any issues arise, contacting the author directly via their profile page can often help to expedite clearing a claim as well.

Tips for clearing claims in advance

Uploading early as an “Unlisted” video

If you’ve licensed digitally fingerprinted music with a license, its recommend that you set your YouTube videos to “Unlisted” upon uploading, until all “matched third-party content” notices are cleared.

This will allow suitable time for any copyright notices to be cleared before the video is published, and ensure that you can monetize your video from the moment it goes live without any conflicts. Once the copyright notice has been removed, the video can then be set to “Public” and monetization can be activated on the video.

Whitelisting Channels

If you or your client regularly uses Content ID registered music by a particular author in your YouTube videos, or have used a piece of Content ID registered music in multiple YouTube videos, some YouTube Partner Platforms such as AdRev also support having an entire YouTube channel whitelisted. Whitelisting a channel will prevent any further copyright notices from appearing on future videos that contain music from that specific author.

To do so, you’ll need to directly contact me and In your message simply provide me with:

1. The contents of your purchased License Certificate(s)
2. A link to the relevant YouTube channel (this may be your own channel or a client’s channel, for example if you are producing videos for them)

Please Note: Occasionally, whitelisting a YouTube channel may not be possible if there are existing, uncleared copyright notices from another author/rights-holder on that channel. If so, these must be individually cleared first, before the channel can be whitelisted.