YouTube lands agreements with more publishers to assist in Content ID

Using their Content ID feature, YouTube can match song covers to a publisher to enable them to make money from a video they didn’t publish. Today to help Content ID along, YouTube announced they landed agreements with National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and its subsidiary Harry Fox Agency (HFA). Today’s agreement will give YouTube another 46,000 more songs to match ads to. YouTube currently also has agreements with many more publishers.

Going forward, the 46,000 music publishers already affiliated with HFA will be able to license the musical compositions they represent for use by the YouTube community. When these publishers allow YouTube to run ads alongside user generated videos that incorporate their compositions, the publishers, and the songwriters they represent, can make money.

Some users don’t agree with Google/YouTube’s decision to place ads on content that they made — such as a cover of a song. The user isn’t actually using the artist’s song, per-say, but using their own voice..and they don’t get to make a cent from it.