Firstly let me say that I am not a lawyer, so this is just my feelings on the subject.

Copyright issues effect many of us on YouTube, so I thought I would put down a few thoughts on it here. as to how it effects me.

Copyright is the right of an individual or Company not to have their owned material copied without consent.

A musical composition. When someone writes a the music of a tune or song, or obtains ownership of such music, the music is protected from being copied or used publicly through copyright. If I recorded myself singing "Old King Cole" in my front room and posted it on YouTube, the owner of that piece of music could raise a Copyright claim against me for using their material publicly without permission.

A musical performance of a tune or song. If I copied the soundtrack of Elvis singing "The Wonder of you" and posted it on YouTube I could receive a copyright claim from the owner of the performance, (maybe a record company), and another copyright claim for use of the musical composition.

So how does this effect me. If I perform an instrumental cover of a song and upload it to YouTube, I could receive a copyright claim for using a musical composition that doesn't belong to me. However, the performance of me playing the music does belong to me, and I have the right to protect my performance from being copied. So if someone copies my performance and puts it on their channel without permission, I could ask YouTube to remove it.

YouTube Systems. YouTube has systems that will automatically detect any music posted, and identify any copyright ownership with a very high degree of accuracy. Each copyright owner will have a defined policy of what should happen when copyright infringement is detected. They could allow the post with no action, they could request adverts on the video for which they will receive payment of all revenues or share any revenues with the person who posted the video. They could also make the video ineligible for monitorisation. Alternatively, they could request the Take Down notice. This could result in a Copyright Strike (different to a Copyright Claim) which will last for 90 days. Three Copyright strikes and your channel will be closed and all content lost.

It is possible to get a Copyright Licence to allow use of a tune, but this must be done for each tune with the Copyright owner. This is difficult to do and may be costly.

All this means that the existence of a cover guitarist like me is a very precarious one.

Do I think it's fair? Well most of it. I think it's harsh that three take down notices could result in you losing your channel permanently, but a copyright claim is fair. I am using someone else's tune for my publication. Think of it as me using their bike for my journey. Should they share any monetisation? Yes, they should receive a payment for me using their bike. How does all this effect my monetisation? The rules and rates are very complicated, but overall I get about £300 per million views.

I hope this helps.