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Learn how to bypass the youtube copyright content matching system for your videos so you never have to see those “matched third party content” alerts again.
If you’ve ever uploaded a video to youtube.com containing music from any of the major record labels, then you are no doubt familiar with the infamous “matched third party content” alert you get from youtube. When this happens, youtube will either mute the audio or run ads over the video while it’s playing. What’s worse is that it may result in a strike being levied against your youtube account, and if you get three strikes then your account will be suspended. While using a popular song to go along with your youtube video may be nice in some respects, it does represent copyright infringement under the current law and it’s something that is therefore best to be avoided.
A better solution is to work within the law and use royalty-free music for your videos instead. This is an effective and legal way to workaround and bypass youtube’s copyright matching system. Thanks to the Internet, royalty-free music is right at your fingertips and just waiting to be downloaded. Altogether I’d estimate there are well over 1 million songs available on a royalty-free basis so you’re sure to find something you like. A royalty-free track may not have the cachet of a song from the top 100 list, but considering that almost all the videos people are uploading to youtube are being made just for fun, they are more than adequate for this purpose. After all, why take a strike against your youtube account when it can easily be avoided? And you know what the really Good News is? A huge number of these royalty-free songs are available for download completely free of charge or for just a nominal fee, frequently less than $1. And it’s completely legal to use these songs in your videos or other iMovie or Final Cut projects. And if you happen to be a GarageBand aficionado, then you’ll be happy to hear that many of the royalty-free songs can be remixed or sampled and used to create new music. No matter how you look at it, this is a great method for how to bypass the youtube third party content matching system.
The usage of royalty-free music is subject to terms set out by the artist or musician who created the song. These can vary so you need to check the terms for each song you plan to use, though generally they break down into two categories. The first is music licensed with a Creative Commons License. Generally such licenses allow you to use the music for your own projects as you desire subject to certain terms. For example, sometimes commercial usage is prohibited. Other types of licensing may limit usage in other ways, for example the license may place a limit on the number of copies that can distributed that use the particular song, or you may have to pay different rates according to how the work you’re creating will be distributed. In any event, always check the license terms for the song you’re thinking about using to ensure you’ll be able to comply with them.
There are quite a lot of sites offering royalty-free music downloads on the web. Here are just a couple that I like:
Incompetech.com offers several dozen royalty-free songs in a number of different genres that are also completely free to download. The web site states that the music is offered under a Creative Commons License that only requires that you credit the artist, Kevin MacLeod, for the music. Music may be used in youtube videos and in commercial works. Just make sure you credit the artist. Lots of great free mp3 downloads on this site. In fact, if you’ve viewed a lot of youtube videos, then the odds are high that you’ve heard his popular song “Rocket” at some point. Whether you’re working on a home video with iMovie or something more complex with Final Cut Studio, you can probably find a song that’s suitable for your project.
Freestockmusic.com is another great site offering several dozen different royalty-free songs in a variety of genres, including corporate, cinematic, rock, pop, hip-hop, easy listening and more. All the music they offer is free to download and use in your youtube videos or any other personal or commercial projects. You have to create an account in order to download the tracks, but there are no strings attached to this. All the songs they offer are free to download and free to use. And not only can you download the mp3 for free, but they also offer you option of downloading the royalty-free tracks in wav and aiff lossless formats.Before sure to check this site out.
Sonnyboo.com offers a wide selection of royalty-free music in mp3 format for sale and they also offer a sampling of tracks available for free download. Find the free songs by clicking here. The license terms are pretty open ended, they just ask you to credit the artist.
Soundclick.com is a really big site with tons of songs available. Not all songs are available for royalty-free licensing, but a huge number of them are. What’s even better is that a very large number of songs are available for free download and even more are available for $1 or less. At the time this article was written, the site contains over a half a million songs available under a Creative Commons License and another half a million songs are available under other licensing terms. With a million songs available, you’re sure to find something you like. To quickly find the songs available on a royalty-free basis, first click here to go to the music licensing section, then choose which licensing you’d like to browse in the pop-up menu (either “commercial license” or “Creative Commons”). With such a wide selection of music, this is a great site to find songs that will let you bypass youtube’s copyright restrictions and save you strikes against your account.
Square-peach.com offers dozens of royalty-free songs in a variety of genres all available for immediate download after payment. Songs are available for a small payment per song or you can buy a package of songs at a substantial discount.
Bandcamp.com offers a huge selection of music from independent artists. Some songs are free while others are available for purchase, and some songs are available for royalty-free usage while others are not. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t offer a way to locate the royalty-free tracks directly. You have to browse around and check the terms for individual albums and songs you’re interested in (usually listed at the bottom of the page). This makes it a bit difficult to find things you can use in your youtube videos, but there’s so much music here that it’s a worthy site to check out. The best place to start is the browse by genre page.
There are more sites out there, but these should get you started. Take advantage of the many free songs offered by these sites to build your own library of royalty-free music and soon you’ll have a great selection of material for iMovie and Final Cut Studio projects. And you’ll never have to see those “matched third party content” messages when uploading your videos to youtube again.
Category: Apple iMovie
