With Creator Music, some songs can be licensed, which means creators pay an upfront fee (or no fee for some tracks) to use music in their video and keep the video’s full revenue share.
Find music to license
To find tracks you can license:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio in a web browser.
- From the left menu, select Creator Music
.
- On the Homeor Browsepages, go to the search bar
and enter search terms, such as song title or artist name.
- Check the License availablebox at the top of your search results.
- On the Homepage, you can find licensable tracks in Featured licensable tracks.
- Licensable tracks are listed with a price next to them.
- If you don’t want to buy a license, licensable tracks may also be eligible to share revenue if your video meets the revenue sharing usage requirements .
Get a license
Once you find a licensable track, there a few ways you can license it:
- In Creator Music
- During upload
- After upload
To license tracks in Creator Music:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio in a web browser.
- From the left menu, select Creator Music
- Find a track you want to license.
- Click "More actions"
- Paid licenses: Buy license.
- No-cost licenses: Download track.
- Pay for the license.
- Paid licenses:Click Buy for
Enter payment info
- To use the license, add the license to your video during upload.
When you upload a video that uses a Creator Music track, you need to add the license information to the video file you’re uploading. You can also buy a license at upload if you haven’t done that yet. You can do all of this from the Video Elementspage:
- Start uploading a video in a web browser.
- On the Video Elementspage, in the Add music licensessection, click ADD.
- Find the tracks you used in the video you’re uploading.
- Click Purchasedfor tracks you’ve already purchased.
- Click Downloadedfor tracks you’ve downloaded.
- Click Savedfor tracks you’ve saved to your library.
- For Downloadedor Savedtracks, click the price. For Purchasedtracks, click ADDand skip to Step 6.
- Review the license details.
- Paid licenses:Click BUY LICENSE
- No-cost licenses :Click ADD LICENSE.
- Paid licenses:Click BUY LICENSE
- Review the Video copyright detailspage to confirm the license was added to your video.
- To add more licenses, repeat Steps 2-5 above.
- Click RETURN TO UPLOADto finish the upload process.
Keep in mind:
- You can also add licenses from the Checkspage if Creator Music tracks are found in the Checks process. On the Checkspage, click ADD LICENSEand complete the licensing steps.If you’ve already added a license on the Video Elementspage, the license will appear on the Checkspage.
- On the Visibilitypage, if your video’s privacy settings are set to Privateor Unlisted, or if a video is a Draft, any licenses you’ve added can be removed and added to other videos. This can’t be done once a video is set to Public. Learn how to remove licenses .
Licensing tracks after upload is possible for a short amount of time after a video is published. To get a license after upload:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio in a web browser.
- From the left menu, select Content
.
- Find the video with the track you want to license.
- Click the video thumbnail.
- From the left menu, select Copyright.
- Paid licenses:Click Buy license
- No-cost licenses:Click Add license.
- Paid licenses:Click Buy license
Remove a license
If a video’s privacy settings are set to Privateor Unlisted, or if a video is a Draft, any licenses that were added to that video can be removed and added to other videos. This can’t be done once a video is set to Public.
To remove a license:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio in a web browser.
- From the left menu, select Content
- Find the video that has the license you want to remove.
- In the Restrictionscolumn, hover over License added.
- Click Review.
- Click Take Action
- Click Remove License.
- Click Continue.
