<p>This has nothing to do with the YouTube Standard Licence, but rather with copyright. The licence selection you get when you upload a video to YouTube is about how others may use your work. However, you are asking about using other people's music in your videos, so it's the other way around. </p>

<p>Whether you can legally upload other people's music depends on your country's legislation. For example, in Germany you would be infringing copyright in 99.99% of the time as our copyright laws are quite strict. In the USA, your usage may or may not be legal under the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Fair Use</a> doctrine. This depends heavily on how and with what intent you are using the music, if you are making money off of it, and several other factors. You need to read up on the legislation that applies to you (depending on where you live) and when in doubt consult a layer.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Have You Tube relaxed their attitude to music being posted in that time as it seems there are lots of full albums which are on major labels being uploaded?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The three most common situations for music on YouTube are the following: </p>

<ul>
<li>The uploader is the musician himself or his label. So they have all the rights to distribute the music however they want. </li>
<li>The usage of the music is protected under Fair Use laws (see above). </li>
<li>There is no legal basis for the uploader's usage of the music and they <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">JUST DO IT</a>, assuming noone will ever sue them and the worst thing that can happen is that they will get a copyright strike on their channel. For the most part, this assumption is pretty solid, as in theory 99% of the content on the internet infringes someone's copyright but only a minority of those cases ever get followed up on and even less people ever have to face real consequences following a copyright infringement. </li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-12T18:59:16.610Z
2016-12-12T18:59:16.610Z
MoritzLost
<p>The current YouTube policy regarding music is really strict. Take a look at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/music_policies" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> link to see which songs are allowed to use and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/yt/copyright/fair-use.html#yt-copyright-four-factors" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> link to read about their "Fair use guidelines". </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-12T18:59:59.233Z
2016-12-12T18:59:59.233Z
Bruno van der Kraan
<p>I add my own content to music and post it to you tube.I am not very prolific my last upload being four years ago. Have You Tube relaxed their attitude to music being posted in that time as it seems there are lots of full albums which are on major labels being uploaded? I remember trying to upload a Roxy Music video and being threatened with being banned four years ago</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-12T18:59:50.617Z
I'm voting to close this as it is not production related. However, I've added an answer to point you in the right direction.
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-13T21:50:28.410Z
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because YouTube legal questions are not Video Production questions.
Michael Tiemann
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-13T21:57:44.857Z
If you use copyright-free / public domain music, you will be fine. [YouTube offers a lot of music you can use.](http://youtube.com/audiolibrary)
BrettFromLA
<youtube>
Youtube Standard Licence
LeeW
# Youtube Standard Licence

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-12-12)

I add my own content to music and post it to you tube.I am not very prolific my last upload being four years ago. Have You Tube relaxed their attitude to music being posted in that time as it seems there are lots of full albums which are on major labels being uploaded? I remember trying to upload a Roxy Music video and being threatened with being banned four years ago

**Tags:** youtube

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I'm voting to close this as it is not production related. However, I've added an answer to point you in the right direction.  
> **username_2**: I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because YouTube legal questions are not Video Production questions.  
> **username_3**: If you use copyright-free / public domain music, you will be fine. [YouTube offers a lot of music you can use.](http://youtube.com/audiolibrary)  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2016-12-12. Score: 1

This has nothing to do with the YouTube Standard Licence, but rather with copyright. The licence selection you get when you upload a video to YouTube is about how others may use your work. However, you are asking about using other people's music in your videos, so it's the other way around.

Whether you can legally upload other people's music depends on your country's legislation. For example, in Germany you would be infringing copyright in 99.99% of the time as our copyright laws are quite strict. In the USA, your usage may or may not be legal under the [Fair Use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use) doctrine. This depends heavily on how and with what intent you are using the music, if you are making money off of it, and several other factors. You need to read up on the legislation that applies to you (depending on where you live) and when in doubt consult a layer.

> Have You Tube relaxed their attitude to music being posted in that time as it seems there are lots of full albums which are on major labels being uploaded?

The three most common situations for music on YouTube are the following:

* The uploader is the musician himself or his label. So they have all the rights to distribute the music however they want.
* The usage of the music is protected under Fair Use laws (see above).
* There is no legal basis for the uploader's usage of the music and they [JUST DO IT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0), assuming noone will ever sue them and the worst thing that can happen is that they will get a copyright strike on their channel. For the most part, this assumption is pretty solid, as in theory 99% of the content on the internet infringes someone's copyright but only a minority of those cases ever get followed up on and even less people ever have to face real consequences following a copyright infringement.


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### Answer by username_4 on 2016-12-12. Score: 0

The current YouTube policy regarding music is really strict. Take a look at [this](https://www.youtube.com/music_policies) link to see which songs are allowed to use and [this](https://www.youtube.com/yt/copyright/fair-use.html#yt-copyright-four-factors) link to read about their "Fair use guidelines".


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