I Received a Copyright Claim From iMusician on YouTube. Why?

If you’ve received a copyright claim from iMusician on YouTube, don’t worry! This is a common situation that occurs when distributing your music through our service. Here’s why it happens and what you can do about it:

Why Did I Receive a Copyright Claim?

When you distribute your music with us, you’re essentially licensing the ownership of your recordings to us so we can monetize them on your behalf. While you retain all rights to your music, the copyright attached to your recordings is linked to iMusician for the purpose of managing monetization.

If you upload your music or any content that includes your music to YouTube (e.g. on your personal channel), YouTube’s detection algorithm will recognize the content as copyrighted and notify you with a copyright claim. This claim indicates that the ownership of this content is linked to iMusician, meaning that you cannot monetize these videos.

What's a Copyright Claim?

A copyright claim is simply a notification explaining that your video contains copyrighted content and therefore cannot be monetized. It has no negative impact on your channel. A copyright claim is not the same as a copyright strike. A copyright strike is when YouTube confirms that you have violated someone else’s copyright. Three of these strikes can result in your channel being deleted.

What Can I Do About a Copyright Claim From iMusician?

1. If you’re okay with iMusician monetizing your content on your behalf, you can simply ignore the claim. The claim will not affect your channel’s status or functionality in any way.
2. If you prefer to manage your channel’s monetization yourself, we can add your channel to YouTube’s allowlist. Once it’s listed, any content you upload on it will no longer be monetized by us, and you’ll have full control over monetization. If you’d like your channel to be allowlisted, simply reach out to us with the link to your YouTube channel. We will forward a request to YouTube to ensure that your channel is excluded from our monetization system.

Copyright claims from iMusician are a normal part of the distribution process and do not negatively impact your channel. Whether you choose to leave the claim as it is or request allowlisting, we’re here to help ensure your YouTube experience aligns with your preferences 👍

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