YouTube Creator Music is a service from YouTube that lets other YouTube creators buy a license to use your music in their video. This feature is included with the Social Media Pack album extra.

If you have existing releases with Social Media Pack, your releases may not be currently included in YouTube Creator Music. You can opt into YouTube Creator Music for previous releases with Content ID by heading to your album page, and navigating to the "Album extras" section. YouTube Creator Music should be listed as a free add-on from your album page under the extras section.

For more information about YouTube's Creator Music program from Google/YouTube, click here.

How YouTube Creator Music Works

To make sure your music is in YouTube Creator Music, opt into the Social Media Pack album extra on the DistroKid upload form while uploading your release.

After opting into the Social Media Pack, DistroKid will submit your release to the YouTube Creator Music Library, allowing creators to find and license your music for their videos. 

When a YouTube creator buys a license to use your music, the license fee (minus 20%) goes to you. These earnings will be shown in your DistroKid Bank at https://distrokid.com/bank.

Licenses sold through YouTube Creator Music are non-exclusive. This means you can sell multiple licenses to different creators for the same release.

The License Fee varies based on the subscriber count of the YouTube creator buying the license, and may change without notice:

• If creator has 1,000 to 100,000 subscribers, they pay $9.99 per license
• If creator has 100,000 to 500,000 subscribers, they pay $24.99 per license
• If creator has 500,000 to 5 million subscribers, they pay $39.99 per license
• If creator has more than 5 million subscribers, they pay $74.99 per license

The license fee is split 50/50 with publishers. If you have a publishing administrator, your publishing administrator will collect 50% and DistroKid will collect the other 50%. If you have a publishing administrator and they have a fees structure for your compositions, the higher of the two license fees will be used.

Important Information Regarding YouTube Creator Music Licenses

If a YouTube creator buys a license to use your music in their video, that video is no longer claimable with Content ID. You get the license fee and the video creator gets the rights to collect the ad revenue from the video.

Content ID will still place a claim on user-generated videos that use any of your music that is in YouTube Creator Music, but the video creator has not purchased a license.

License usage is for a single video only. This means a license is purchased per video, and cannot be reused for a different video.

The license duration is in perpetuity. This means the license is good for as long as the video is on YouTube.

The territorial usage for the license is worldwide. This means anyone around the world can buy a license to use your music (this also depends on the feature territorial availability determined by YouTube).