YouTube is the top destination site on the planet for music discovery, streaming and sharing. It has over a billion unique visitors each day streaming, watching and listening to videos. Each minute more than 100 hours of new videos are uploaded. By the end of the year, there will be over a trillion views of these videos.
YouTube makes it money by getting advertisers to pay it to place ads on these videos. It then shares this money back with the people that made the videos. In certain circumstances it ALSO shares some of this money back with the people that have made the music that appear in the videos.
There are two ways to make money on YouTube:
- One is from views of your own videos.
- The other is from views of the billions and billions of other people’s videos on YouTube.
Imagine if your music was in all those other people’s videos and you got paid each time any of those billions of other videos were watched.
This is what Audiam does.
We find your music being used in those billions and billions of other peoples’ videos, tell YouTube to place ads on those videos and get you back your share of the ad money.
We also create a way for people to get your music for use in their videos, so more videos will have your music in them, thereby generating you more money.
Finally, if you like, you can also use Audiam to make money on your own videos.
### How YouTube works
There are two ways to make money on YouTube:
- One is from views of your own videos on your own YouTube account—your account is called a “Channel” by YouTube.
- The second is from views of other peoples’ videos which have music in them—this is called a “Claim.”
These two ways to make money—Channels and Claims—work in different ways.
#### YouTube Channels: how to make money on your own videos in your own YouTube account
Let’s say you make, on your own, a video of your three fingers wiggling. As soon as you’re done recording it, you have created a copyright protected movie, no one else can use it without your okay.
As it’s your own fingers and it’s your own video, you control all the copyrights in it. Say you want to put this video on YouTube.
You create an account at YouTube called a “Channel” and upload your video of the three fingers wiggling. By doing this, you have now given YouTube a license to reproduce your video and let others watch it on YouTube.
You can also tell YouTube to “monetize” your video with ads (this option appears for everyone in their YouTube account—no middleman needed). When the ads generate money, YouTube pays you about 55% of what the advertiser paid them.
_REMEMBER: Anyone can make money on YouTube on their own videos if they control all the copyrights in the video. No middleman is needed._
#### CLAIMS: How to make money on other peoples’ videos using your music
Now let’s assume someone else made a video with of their three fingers wiggling—not you, but a stranger you’ve never met. And now assume this stranger puts music you wrote or recorded into their video of the three fingers wiggling.
That video now has three copyrights:
1. One for the video itself,
2. One for the recording of the song,
3. One for that person that wrote the lyrics and melody to the song (called “The Composition”).
_For example, Sony Records hires Whitney Houston to sing the song “I Will Always Love You.” The recording of the song is owned by Sony Records. However, Dolly Parton wrote the lyrics and melody to the song “I Will Always Love You.” Dolly Parton owns the lyrics and melody of the song._
In order for YouTube to place an ad on that video, all three copyright holders need to say it’s okay. For this to happen, the person or company that controls the song has to enter into a special contract with YouTube called a “Direct Licensing” contract. These contracts are typically given only to larger music companies, not to individual artists or songwriters. These contracts are not part of a YouTube channel deal–that is, the deal you agree to with YouTube to make money on your own videos.
The Direct Licensing contract allows the person or company to send a list to YouTube of all the recordings (“Masters”) or "Compositions" (a.k.a., the lyrics and melodies) they control. YouTube then gives the person or company the power to go into YouTube and find other peoples’ videos that have their recordings or compositions in them and do one of three things:
1. Do nothing, leave the video on YouTube as is,
2. Tell YouTube to take the other person’s video down, or
3. Tell YouTube to sell ads on the other person’s video and share the ad money back with the person/entity that controls the recording (“Master”) and the person/entity that controls the lyrics and melody ("Composition”).
To help the person or company find other peoples’ videos on YouTube that have their music in them, YouTube asks the person or company to deliver a copy of the recording of the song. YouTube then “fingerprints” the recording of the song and beams that fingerprint against the billions and billions of past, present and future videos on YouTube, looking for matches.
When YouTube finds other peoples’ videos that have the person or company’s music in them, they ask the person who made the video if they have a legal right to use the music in their video (for example, the person that made the video contacted the artist and got a license from them to use it).
YouTube asks the video creator if they have the legal rights by sending the video maker a notice that gives them two choices: "Acknowledge" that you don’t have the rights, or "Dispute" that you don’t have the rights.
- If the video maker clicks “Acknowledge” (meaning they don’t have the rights to use the music in their video) the video stays up, an ad goes on the video, and the artist gets paid a small percentage of the money.
- If the video maker clicks “Dispute,” (meaning they do have the rights to use the music in their video), YouTUbe tells Audiam, and Audaim asks the artist if the video maker has a legal right to use their music. If the artist says “yes they do,” the video still stays up and YouTube does not pay any money directly to the artist for the music.

This same system more or less exists for the person that wrote the lyrics and melody as well.
### What Audiam does and how it works
Audiam has these special "direct licensing" contracts (again, not open to everyone) with YouTube.
We also:
1. Make sure the right data gets to YouTube about your music,
2. Stop the wrong people/entities from claiming they "own" your music in YouTube,
3. Work to get you back revenue generated from the use of your music in the past that was paid to others but shouldn’t have,
4. Find videos in YouTube using your music through a combination of YouTube's technology, Audiam's technology and manual labor,
5. Tell YouTube to put ads on the videos with your music in them,
6. Get you your money, and
7. Get more people to use your music in their videos, thereby generating you more money.
This is all we do, 24/7. We are the best in the world at it. It’s why Jason Mraz, Jimmy Buffet, Graham Nash, Lenny Kravitz, and thousands and thousands more use Audiam.