What is YouTube Music and how does it work?

Created by Ilja Syumko, Modified on Wed, 5 Feb at 10:00 AM by Ilja Syumko

YouTube Music is YouTube's streaming platform.

When you distribute releases to YouTube Music, you may see videos on YouTube that include your cover art, songs, and song information in the description. This is normal, and these videos are monetized - so you earn money when these videos generate revenue from ads and views.


YouTube Music publishes all content they receive from us in "video art" format. This means that every single, EP, or album distributed to YouTube Music is published as an "autogenerated" video, using the cover art of the release as the video thumbnail and video content.

These songs are also freely available to YouTube Music subscribers and in the YouTube Music app.


Has your video release appeared on another YouTube channel?

By default, YouTube Music sends the release to one of these three channels:

    • "Various Artists - Theme" (i.e. Various Artists 1, Various Artists 2)

    • "[Artist Name] - Theme": This channel is automatically created by YouTube. All auto-generated videos from an artist are stored here.

• Your personal channel: YouTube prioritizes syncing auto-generated videos to your channel.

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