How does YouTube Content ID work?

Created by Ilja Syumko, Modified on Wed, 5 Feb at 9:57 AM by Ilja Syumko

YouTube Content ID is a digital fingerprinting system developed by Google that is used to easily identify and manage copyrighted content on YouTube. Videos uploaded to YouTube are compared to audio and video files registered by content owners with the Content ID and look for matches.


Once you tick exclusive rights for your music and don't explicitly opt out, YouTube creates a reference as an invisible fingerprint that protects your distributed content and recognizes all third-party content across your catalog.


We work with Content ID to collect revenue from videos that use your music.


Content ID is a piece of intellectual property created to protect your content on YouTube, so if you don't have the exclusive rights to distribute and still list exclusive rights, it can lead to YouTube ownership conflicts in the short or long term, causing you potential problems with your channel and/or potential legal issues. YouTube Content ID can only be activated if you have 100% exclusive rights to the release, including the composition. If you leased an instrumental or beat (on sites like BeatStars.com or traktrain.com), you most likely are not entitled to Content ID on that track.

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