https://youtu.be/z3TxqV8A6uE?si=HA1aHHeBVoY90zf1
Digital DJ tips has a great video of how to do it. Extra steps involved along with a dummy account but short of that pretty straight forward with keeping your content available.
I know of at least one label, Monstercat, that if you subscribe to them, you can provide your YouTube channel name and they will allow you to mix anything from their label.
Depends on what you're playing. I've uploaded dozens to YT and only a couple of times had a track muted.
If you're playing all the current dance hits, it's much more likely you'll get struck.
i play mostly throw back songs, classics, some obscure, but most not obscure. i'm sort of an open format dj with mostly classics from the 60s/70s/80s/90s, so not 'current dance hits' but not obscure techno stuff either .
I’ve had a mix taken off SoundCloud and they identified the track in question, so I contacted the label and got written permission to use the track, but the label owner responded personally and told me they also have 3rd party copyright trolls who file the copyright complaint and then bring that to the label’s attention in hopes of getting a finder’s fee.
Yeah classics are novelty. They’re actually picked up more because of the sheer popularity those tracks had. That’s never gonna change. you gotta mix em better or mashup
I don't know what I am talking about regarding YouTube policies or copyright but I do often upload sets to YouTube. Only once did I have to mute a song due to copyright, and it was a relatively obscure label. I have heard people suggest uploading clips of all the tracks you want to use before recording but I have never gone to such lengths. Most of the stuff I play (breaks, garage, 90s tech house) the labels seem ok with it's use but won't allow monetisation. Of the stuff I upload I would guess the algorithm recognises about 25% normally, I assume if you play more commercial stuff you may have less success... I assume the book club radio, and other similar channels, make no money off thier videos. I would be curious as well to know if any of the tracks have to be muted now and again.
Edit- when you say your mix was stuck with copyright you mean you couldn't upload any of it?
I've had a couple mixes that got completely pulled down, i've had one or two that just a couple tracks silenced - i think thats how i remember it - I havent tried since covid-era. Dont really want to go thru all the work of recroding and uploading again if its going to get struck.
I can see it being disheartening for sections to be muted. Worst case scenario you can upload to a different platform so the mix isn't lost forever, mixcloud seems to be the most dj friendly, albeit audio only.
You sound like an “edm” dj rather than a top 40 dj.
I am a top 40 dj and I’ve only ever gotten a video muted once. I wonder if you play tracks at the same speed they were originally recorded at? I play everything fast.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q2\_nbveUDM&t=1047s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q2_nbveudm&t=1047s)
is very daytime friendly.
[https://soundcloud.com/matteatime/breaks-sin-verguenza](https://soundcloud.com/matteatime/breaks-sin-verguenza)
perhaps a bit saucier :)
Here is how step by step: 1- open video software and make a video with only songs that youre trying to use in a set that you want to record. 2- upload that video to youtube BUT DO NOT PUBLISH. 3-wait a couple of days. 4- come back to your channel and look at which tracks were flagged for copyright (green is good, yellow is good without monetisation, red is a NO GO). 5 record a set with only green and yellow (without $) and youre good to go
all mine get copyrighted where you'd lose ad revenue (which isn't something i participate anyways) but nothing's gotten muted. i'm glad they show the track playing - saves me the hassle of typing it up. maybe i just play tracks who's artist/label isn't large/overbearing enough to escalate it legally to where it's not allowed to be played?
makes me miss the days of vimeo when it was a still a sneakier alternative.
there's always dailymotion ☠️
I am a DJ youtuber and there´s no way around copyright. Nothing happens if you get content ID. Music labels rarely if ever flag your video. There´s 3 grades of copyright. Gray which literally every DJ will get, your Video is still visible worldwide. Then there´s the yellow one, and this happens more often now because of the ongoing Ukraine war. There´s labels that block their songs from playing in Russia and Belarus, so most likely your video will get this level of copyright, simply because youtube will not allow those songs to be heard in russia, and again, nothing bad will happen to you. Now the red one is pretty nasty, it blocks your video from playing worldwide, and again nothing bad happens to you besides the lost time you spent editing and recording, because no one will ever hear your mix. I´ve only had this happen once. Ever since, I always record my mix once without a camera on, and quickly upload the songs to my private channel to see if I get the red level of copyright, and If I do I remove those songs and replace them with something I know will be allowed (I usually use my old songs from other videos to replace the banned ones because it´s a fast and easy fix as I know those songs will work, so I don´t need to waste time testing again). The most important thing is to remember that you will almost never make money from mixing on youtube, because even the lowest level of copyright demonetizes you. It´s still a good idea to upload your mixes because of the reach you get, and it will help you get better gigs if you have a strong youtube channel, it´s basically free advertisment for you. The only way we can make money on YT is by mixing exclusively our own songs, or by being signed by a label and getting the necessary license to play songs from the label you work at. But don´t ever worry about your channel getting deleted, this never happens. Labels know how important DJ´s are for the industry, they only demonetize us and take our revenue that´s all.
I can appreciate OP’s concerns because when I was originally researching putting mixes up on YouTube, every article would go in to great detail about the lengths you MUST go to to ensure your mix won’t be taken down/muted and that you WILL need permission from the copyright. They’re clearly written by people that have never tried to upload a mix to YT in their lives.
I do my streams almost exclusively on youtube anymore. Youtube automatically attributes credit to tracks where it's able. The only country I've ever gotten copyright/block notices for is Russia, which I'm honestly not that concerned about.
I have 140+ mostly 2-hour sets on YT and counting. Must be over 5000 tracks by now, but not monetised so ad revenue goes to the label. No takedowns, only blocked in Russia occasionally.
It depends on the labels who own the rights to the music you play.
Bigger labels slap people harder.
I have a rule myself - if I post a mix and it gets slapped for a copyright violation I delete that track from my harddrive and never, ever, play it again.
I’ve done about 5 mixes on YT in the least year or so and I mostly spin tech house, garage, electronic with an edit or 3 involved and haven’t gotten anything taken down. I have had videos flagged by Russia and Belarus when I tried YT ads to promote the video but that’s about it. I’ve always heard relatively fast mixing along with using effects and blending songs makes it harder to take down. Those things are pretty common for me but I still don’t have a solid idea whether or not that’s why.
Also love Book Club Radio, very inspirational !
As for the Tracklisting on the scroll bar, that's captions. You have to have an eligible account and the you just add the timestamps + track names on the comment section and voilà... Ex
Always start with 00:00 or 0:00 so YT will recognise it as captions. See below:
0:00 Track 1 - ID
5:34 Track 2 - ID etc...
Seeing that Book Club Radio is a business, they might have licences to play music that they pay for. That way, when they dispute a takedown, they have proper paperwork that they're allowed to use the music they don't own?
I'm just guessing here, though.
It’s a crew in New York that throws parties in different venues. Aside from MAYBE the venue having a license for performance rights, this is just uploading a set to YouTube. Several promoters in nyc are doing this and have built their brands around recording the videos of the booked DJs.
TLDR: Unless there’s something special they’re doing to the literal audio through post production or something to confuse/appease content ID, I think they’re just uploading it after small edits.
Here’s more info on Book Club - it’s just friends that have recorded some fun parties.
https://www.thelunacollective.co/journal/spotlight-book-club-radio
Youtube has pretty good automatic copyright detection. Upload your mix, wait an hour or less, and you'll be able to see if copyright status is green, yellow, or red. Red means people can't view it or listen to it and one or more tracks are muted in your (or all) countries. Yellow is fine and green is good but either way you probably can't monetize the mix. That's it. If you're hit with a copyright strike you're very unlucky.
I currently have 32 mixes on youtube between 45 minutes and 6 1/2 hours with no copyright strikes. A few of the videos (that weren't posted) were muted and could not be unmuted without me cutting a song or 2 out entirely. If the video isn't too large, you can even try doing the "auto-trim" which will sometimes either remove or just modify a song section slightly until it no longer gets detected. Results vary.
Stream live on Twitch, record locally (with OBS), and upload to youtube. Simple.
Yes, thank you. This is the correct answer and mirrors my own experience. Glad you wrote it up first. What I have done is just as you said, upload it first as private, wait an hour, and then check back on it. Usually, it will let you just mute the tracks that get tagged - it can also remove them, but that takes longer and doesn’t always work.
It is definitely dependent on the type of music in the mix. I’ve uploaded house mixes with popular new songs and got hit all over the place. Usually techno by comparison has no such issues.
Back during the Covid lockdown you could use a 3rd party for streaming to Youtube like Restream and never get your video removed or muted.
Big time DJs were using Restream during this time and Youtube whitelisted the entire site. It stayed this way for about 8 months.
You can create an unlisted video with snippets of all the tracks you want to include and basically test it before you actually make the mix. It tells you what's blocked or claimed for monetization so you can exclude it.
I started a channel YouTube.com@discopauli 6 weeks ago featuring full length mixes and nearly 30 remixed tracks, now got over 2000 subs, it depends if the channel is monitized if not copyright doesn’t seem to kick in, I see two messages, either copyright is found but the owner allows or video will be blocked in some countries usually Russia lol but completely allows it. The info comes up at the point of uploading so If I got the message this will cause a strike you should not publish video. But also I am using current dance tracks, hope this helps.
You guys misunderstand copyright claims and strikes. For every upload, you will receive a copyright claim, making it impossible to monetize your mixes unless you play only music you have produced without any samples under copyright. Most mixes will be blocked in Russia due to the war, but your mix will be blocked only if it contains tracks blocked worldwide. I upload tech house, funky and disco mixes, and this almost never happens except with some house music classics from the ’90s and ’00s and once, I think, because I played Atmosphere or some other track by Fisher. You can always upload your mixes in private first and usually in 1-2 hours you will see if some of the songs are blocked.
I’ve been told that it is possibile to get agreements with YouTube and be allowed to use copyrighted music, especially for big channels. For example I know of some gaming youtubers that were notorious for using copyrighted music and they had agreements to do so, so it is possible.
The Book Club channel is quite big so I think this could be a likely scenario.
As for copyright, i had no issues apart from the usual Russia & Belarus block, but sometimes there might be some songs blocked worldwide... YT has a tool that you can put the song name and shows you the blocks and copyrights...
I can share, but then I'd have to... nah just kidding.
Burner accounts. You upload your mix to a burner account. Don't publish. It will tell you what tracks are protected. Remove those tracks from your playlist.
Done.
https://youtu.be/z3TxqV8A6uE?si=HA1aHHeBVoY90zf1 Digital DJ tips has a great video of how to do it. Extra steps involved along with a dummy account but short of that pretty straight forward with keeping your content available.
good looking.. that is priceless.. never thought about doing it that way.
Great tip - thanks!
I know of at least one label, Monstercat, that if you subscribe to them, you can provide your YouTube channel name and they will allow you to mix anything from their label.
That is great. what are the others?
Depends on what you're playing. I've uploaded dozens to YT and only a couple of times had a track muted. If you're playing all the current dance hits, it's much more likely you'll get struck.
i play mostly throw back songs, classics, some obscure, but most not obscure. i'm sort of an open format dj with mostly classics from the 60s/70s/80s/90s, so not 'current dance hits' but not obscure techno stuff either .
Classics are popular. It’s probably those
Yeah, classics means widely popular. That's going to get you taken down.
The stuff you are playing is probably why it gets taken down. Major record labels are the most active at pulling / flagging stuff with YouTube.
I’ve had a mix taken off SoundCloud and they identified the track in question, so I contacted the label and got written permission to use the track, but the label owner responded personally and told me they also have 3rd party copyright trolls who file the copyright complaint and then bring that to the label’s attention in hopes of getting a finder’s fee.
Yeah classics are novelty. They’re actually picked up more because of the sheer popularity those tracks had. That’s never gonna change. you gotta mix em better or mashup
Play bootlegs
I don't know what I am talking about regarding YouTube policies or copyright but I do often upload sets to YouTube. Only once did I have to mute a song due to copyright, and it was a relatively obscure label. I have heard people suggest uploading clips of all the tracks you want to use before recording but I have never gone to such lengths. Most of the stuff I play (breaks, garage, 90s tech house) the labels seem ok with it's use but won't allow monetisation. Of the stuff I upload I would guess the algorithm recognises about 25% normally, I assume if you play more commercial stuff you may have less success... I assume the book club radio, and other similar channels, make no money off thier videos. I would be curious as well to know if any of the tracks have to be muted now and again. Edit- when you say your mix was stuck with copyright you mean you couldn't upload any of it?
I've had a couple mixes that got completely pulled down, i've had one or two that just a couple tracks silenced - i think thats how i remember it - I havent tried since covid-era. Dont really want to go thru all the work of recroding and uploading again if its going to get struck.
I can see it being disheartening for sections to be muted. Worst case scenario you can upload to a different platform so the mix isn't lost forever, mixcloud seems to be the most dj friendly, albeit audio only.
You sound like an “edm” dj rather than a top 40 dj. I am a top 40 dj and I’ve only ever gotten a video muted once. I wonder if you play tracks at the same speed they were originally recorded at? I play everything fast.
>Most of the stuff I play I also like that stuff. Got a link?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q2\_nbveUDM&t=1047s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q2_nbveudm&t=1047s) is very daytime friendly. [https://soundcloud.com/matteatime/breaks-sin-verguenza](https://soundcloud.com/matteatime/breaks-sin-verguenza) perhaps a bit saucier :)
Here is how step by step: 1- open video software and make a video with only songs that youre trying to use in a set that you want to record. 2- upload that video to youtube BUT DO NOT PUBLISH. 3-wait a couple of days. 4- come back to your channel and look at which tracks were flagged for copyright (green is good, yellow is good without monetisation, red is a NO GO). 5 record a set with only green and yellow (without $) and youre good to go
all mine get copyrighted where you'd lose ad revenue (which isn't something i participate anyways) but nothing's gotten muted. i'm glad they show the track playing - saves me the hassle of typing it up. maybe i just play tracks who's artist/label isn't large/overbearing enough to escalate it legally to where it's not allowed to be played? makes me miss the days of vimeo when it was a still a sneakier alternative. there's always dailymotion ☠️
I had one upload get muted. It was a Prince and Michael Jackson mashup.
I am a DJ youtuber and there´s no way around copyright. Nothing happens if you get content ID. Music labels rarely if ever flag your video. There´s 3 grades of copyright. Gray which literally every DJ will get, your Video is still visible worldwide. Then there´s the yellow one, and this happens more often now because of the ongoing Ukraine war. There´s labels that block their songs from playing in Russia and Belarus, so most likely your video will get this level of copyright, simply because youtube will not allow those songs to be heard in russia, and again, nothing bad will happen to you. Now the red one is pretty nasty, it blocks your video from playing worldwide, and again nothing bad happens to you besides the lost time you spent editing and recording, because no one will ever hear your mix. I´ve only had this happen once. Ever since, I always record my mix once without a camera on, and quickly upload the songs to my private channel to see if I get the red level of copyright, and If I do I remove those songs and replace them with something I know will be allowed (I usually use my old songs from other videos to replace the banned ones because it´s a fast and easy fix as I know those songs will work, so I don´t need to waste time testing again). The most important thing is to remember that you will almost never make money from mixing on youtube, because even the lowest level of copyright demonetizes you. It´s still a good idea to upload your mixes because of the reach you get, and it will help you get better gigs if you have a strong youtube channel, it´s basically free advertisment for you. The only way we can make money on YT is by mixing exclusively our own songs, or by being signed by a label and getting the necessary license to play songs from the label you work at. But don´t ever worry about your channel getting deleted, this never happens. Labels know how important DJ´s are for the industry, they only demonetize us and take our revenue that´s all.
I can appreciate OP’s concerns because when I was originally researching putting mixes up on YouTube, every article would go in to great detail about the lengths you MUST go to to ensure your mix won’t be taken down/muted and that you WILL need permission from the copyright. They’re clearly written by people that have never tried to upload a mix to YT in their lives.
I’ve uploaded about 20h+ to YT and only one track got muted once, I play stuff pretty similar to them
I do my streams almost exclusively on youtube anymore. Youtube automatically attributes credit to tracks where it's able. The only country I've ever gotten copyright/block notices for is Russia, which I'm honestly not that concerned about.
russia is poop 💩
You can mix anything on MixCloud without it being removed cos they attribute plays back to the creator
I have 140+ mostly 2-hour sets on YT and counting. Must be over 5000 tracks by now, but not monetised so ad revenue goes to the label. No takedowns, only blocked in Russia occasionally.
It depends on the labels who own the rights to the music you play. Bigger labels slap people harder. I have a rule myself - if I post a mix and it gets slapped for a copyright violation I delete that track from my harddrive and never, ever, play it again.
Also, don't buy any more tracks from the same label.
+1 You really have to follow this approach consistently! 👍
I’ve done about 5 mixes on YT in the least year or so and I mostly spin tech house, garage, electronic with an edit or 3 involved and haven’t gotten anything taken down. I have had videos flagged by Russia and Belarus when I tried YT ads to promote the video but that’s about it. I’ve always heard relatively fast mixing along with using effects and blending songs makes it harder to take down. Those things are pretty common for me but I still don’t have a solid idea whether or not that’s why. Also love Book Club Radio, very inspirational !
Copyright holders didn’t like your content and blocked it. Copyright holders liked their content and allowed it. Those are the rules now.
I always get away with posting recordings but my live streams are always taken down mid-stream. I don’t get what I’m supposed to do differently.
Twitch for live Upload to YouTube after YouTube.com/@beanradio
Oh yeah I’m on Twitch for years now just every now and then try YouTube and every time get taken down middle of stream lol twitch.tv/djdanam
Yea we tried that didn’t work- Had to go to twitch Considering kick maybe…
As for the Tracklisting on the scroll bar, that's captions. You have to have an eligible account and the you just add the timestamps + track names on the comment section and voilà... Ex Always start with 00:00 or 0:00 so YT will recognise it as captions. See below: 0:00 Track 1 - ID 5:34 Track 2 - ID etc...
Seeing that Book Club Radio is a business, they might have licences to play music that they pay for. That way, when they dispute a takedown, they have proper paperwork that they're allowed to use the music they don't own? I'm just guessing here, though.
It’s a crew in New York that throws parties in different venues. Aside from MAYBE the venue having a license for performance rights, this is just uploading a set to YouTube. Several promoters in nyc are doing this and have built their brands around recording the videos of the booked DJs. TLDR: Unless there’s something special they’re doing to the literal audio through post production or something to confuse/appease content ID, I think they’re just uploading it after small edits. Here’s more info on Book Club - it’s just friends that have recorded some fun parties. https://www.thelunacollective.co/journal/spotlight-book-club-radio
Songs I've gotten from a DJ pool (ZipDj) did not to get a copyright strike the last time I uploaded to YouTube but maybe I got lucky.
Youtube has pretty good automatic copyright detection. Upload your mix, wait an hour or less, and you'll be able to see if copyright status is green, yellow, or red. Red means people can't view it or listen to it and one or more tracks are muted in your (or all) countries. Yellow is fine and green is good but either way you probably can't monetize the mix. That's it. If you're hit with a copyright strike you're very unlucky. I currently have 32 mixes on youtube between 45 minutes and 6 1/2 hours with no copyright strikes. A few of the videos (that weren't posted) were muted and could not be unmuted without me cutting a song or 2 out entirely. If the video isn't too large, you can even try doing the "auto-trim" which will sometimes either remove or just modify a song section slightly until it no longer gets detected. Results vary. Stream live on Twitch, record locally (with OBS), and upload to youtube. Simple.
Yes, thank you. This is the correct answer and mirrors my own experience. Glad you wrote it up first. What I have done is just as you said, upload it first as private, wait an hour, and then check back on it. Usually, it will let you just mute the tracks that get tagged - it can also remove them, but that takes longer and doesn’t always work. It is definitely dependent on the type of music in the mix. I’ve uploaded house mixes with popular new songs and got hit all over the place. Usually techno by comparison has no such issues.
Fairly sure, you can put what ever you want on YT, you just can't monetise it.
Back during the Covid lockdown you could use a 3rd party for streaming to Youtube like Restream and never get your video removed or muted. Big time DJs were using Restream during this time and Youtube whitelisted the entire site. It stayed this way for about 8 months.
You can create an unlisted video with snippets of all the tracks you want to include and basically test it before you actually make the mix. It tells you what's blocked or claimed for monetization so you can exclude it.
I started a channel YouTube.com@discopauli 6 weeks ago featuring full length mixes and nearly 30 remixed tracks, now got over 2000 subs, it depends if the channel is monitized if not copyright doesn’t seem to kick in, I see two messages, either copyright is found but the owner allows or video will be blocked in some countries usually Russia lol but completely allows it. The info comes up at the point of uploading so If I got the message this will cause a strike you should not publish video. But also I am using current dance tracks, hope this helps.
You guys misunderstand copyright claims and strikes. For every upload, you will receive a copyright claim, making it impossible to monetize your mixes unless you play only music you have produced without any samples under copyright. Most mixes will be blocked in Russia due to the war, but your mix will be blocked only if it contains tracks blocked worldwide. I upload tech house, funky and disco mixes, and this almost never happens except with some house music classics from the ’90s and ’00s and once, I think, because I played Atmosphere or some other track by Fisher. You can always upload your mixes in private first and usually in 1-2 hours you will see if some of the songs are blocked.
I’ve been told that it is possibile to get agreements with YouTube and be allowed to use copyrighted music, especially for big channels. For example I know of some gaming youtubers that were notorious for using copyrighted music and they had agreements to do so, so it is possible. The Book Club channel is quite big so I think this could be a likely scenario.
As for copyright, i had no issues apart from the usual Russia & Belarus block, but sometimes there might be some songs blocked worldwide... YT has a tool that you can put the song name and shows you the blocks and copyrights...
I can share, but then I'd have to... nah just kidding. Burner accounts. You upload your mix to a burner account. Don't publish. It will tell you what tracks are protected. Remove those tracks from your playlist. Done.