Any legal issues involved in covering songs?

They will only "take them down" also known as termination, if the channels receive three copyright strikes in a 90 day period; or if YouTube looks them over, and sees that such a channel is a blatant violator of copyright.

They will however, be demonetized, and removed from the YouTube Partner Programme.
 
Thanks for all the help and kind replies so far. Let's give a real example of this channel :

www.youtube.com

Ru's Piano Ru味春捲

Join RuRu's Membership to support me create music videos 加入我的YT會員，支持RuRu繼續創作音樂 YouTubeメンバー、こちらから入れます ➜ https://www.youtube.com/c/RusPiano/join I’m RuRu, a...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

Which is almost all if not all copyrighted material. It seems to be doing ok and it's not very old? How come YT is not taking it down?
 
Okay so Youtube doesn't take down videos, the rights holders take down videos. Even the content ID system is only when the rights holder submits their content to be automatically scanned.

Typically Anime and Manga doesn't get copyright strikes, though it has happened.

Everyone who has copyrighted materials can be easily banned if the rights holder decided to give take down everything.
Covers do not fall into fair use and are copyright infringement unless you get permission.
My friend does drum covers and many of his videos have gotten him in trouble. Some labels don't care very much. Some care a lot and will take down and punish creators for less than 2 seconds of content even on a 1 hour video.
Some channel networks have deals with some labels that makes this easier but networks will take a cut of the money so idk if you want to do that.

Seems unfair, maybe it is, but legally speaking, each copyright infringement (in the USA at least) should be a lawsuit for $100,000+ so Youtube system of creators just getting their video removed and losing a channel is sort of better than that.

If you are a cover artist, chances are your videos will likely be demonetized and claimed so most that I know actually move their monetary system to something like Patreon.

I mean technically coving a song at a wedding that you didn't get the rights to are illegal.
Don't forget Ascap sued the girl scouts for singing happy birthday around the camp fire
 
THanks once again for the reply. Seems strange that a lot of them haven't been taken down though?

Has anyone ever actually been sued for that amount of money? Or YT just takes the stuff down?

This whole thing seems like a minefield lol
 
Cyath said:
Seems strange that a lot of them haven't been taken down though?
Click to expand...
Not strange at all; as copyright owners love to make money off people who infringe their rights, and if you take it down, you also make no money from monetizing the videos through Content ID. No YouTuber I know of has been sued for copyright infringement yet; but the monetary penalty has been prescribed by United States Federal law, and there have been many incidents of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) suing people for millions of dollars.

www.nbcnews.com

Single mom can't pay $1.5M song-sharing fine

A Minnesota woman ordered to pay a recording industry trade group $1.5 million for illegally sharing music online doesn't plan to pay those damages as her attorneys continue to argue the amount is unconstitutional, she said Thursday.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
 
Yes they do if they set their policy to "claim and monetize this content". If however, your own channel is monetized when the claim is placed, and the copyright owner has set the policy to "claim and monetize this content; revenue sharing allowed", the claimant will not take all of the money, but share it with you.

You cannot be approved for initial monetization these days with cover songs as a rule, however. The only slight chance, is if you can prove Master Sync Licensing for everything you've covered; and YouTube may still see it as not being your original content as you would be neither the composer, the lyricist, nor the original performer of the material.
 
UKHypnotist said:
The only slight chance, is if you can prove Master Sync Licensing for everything you've covered; and YouTube may still see it as not being your original content as you would be neither the composer, the lyricist, nor the original performer of the material.
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You'd be much better off creating some original content if you want a monetized channel.
 
Hmmmm I just really want to cover some songs because I want to, monetizing would simply be a side benefit. It sucks if I can't monetize AT ALL though...
 
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