What is the biggest thing in music today? Participation. While
YouTube has always been a two-way street, engaging your
audience with music has become mission critical. Fans and
creators are not in the back seat anymore - they’re making
music bounce across formats and find new global audiences.
YouTube is home to over two million professional creators
1
who forged a multi-billion dollar economy and attracted
passionate audiences. Building new bridges between the world
of creators and artists is how we will make 1+1 equal 3.
That’s why we announced at our
Made on YouTube event
that Creator Music is now in beta in the US.
Creator Music is a new destination in YouTube Studio giving
creators easy access to an ever growing catalog of music for
use in their long-form video.
Pop culture moves fast, and creators need quick music
clearances to create amazing content that is of the moment.
Creators will either pay for the music with an upfront fee, or
share a portion of their ad revenue with the music
rights-holders. This will be a true game changer for creators,
artists, and fans. A win-win-win:
-
Unleashing creativity:
Creators have said
time and time again that they want access to popular music
because it inspires them creatively. Music is culture.
Creator Music will allow them to add their own flavor to
the zeitgeist and create even more amazing content.
-
Growing music promotion:
Think about it -
two million creators is like two million ways to uniquely
break your songs with global and diverse audiences.
Experiencing a song from the perspective of your favorite
creator opens new doors. Take
Kyle Hanagami
, who, with 4.5 million subscribers, has one of the
biggest dance channels on YouTube. Kyle’s viewers are a
younger pop audience. And access to that audience is
hugely valuable for pop artists who want to share music
with those fans. On top of that, using pop music is
valuable for Kyle too, because he wants to create content
with music his subscribers love. Everyone wins.
-
Unlocking revenue:
Last week I shared
that
YouTube contributed $6B to the music industry in 12
months
2
, with 30% of the revenue coming from user
generated content (for the second year in a
row
3
). Now, Creator Music will enable the music
industry to grow their earnings from YouTube even more by
helping creators create more monetizable content.
YouTube’s creators are thriving, and artists are only
scratching the surface when it comes to collaborating with
them. Artists are under tremendous pressure right now to be
“always on,” but not all of them signed up for that. My hope
is that by giving creators access to an artist’s music, the
artist will unlock more time to focus on what they love:
creating music. I look forward to helping 1+1 equal 3 and to
witnessing the next soundtrack of YouTube.
One
With love and respect,
-
1
These are creators enrolled in YouTube’s
Partner Program, which lets qualifying creators tap into
different ways to earn revenue, gives access to 1:1 chat
and email support, and allows you to use the Copyright
Match Tool.
-
2
July 2021-June 2022
-
3
UGC drove over 30% of payouts for artists,
songwriters, and rights-holders, for the second year in a
row (July 2021 to June 2022 vs July 2020 to June 2021)