New Digital DJ Tips Subscriber Vukasin writes: “I was thinking to upload my mixes to YouTube when I make them but i found out that my videos might be banned because of copyrights. Do you know what can I do to prevent that, and be able to publish mixes on YouYube like others? I really don’t want to contact every song owner and ask/wait for permission. Is there a way to upload videos and keep them there without copyright permission? I saw that some DJ just write in the video description that they don’t own the songs and they provide links to song. Is that really all I need to do to keep my videos and don’t have them taken down?”
Digital DJ Tips says:
In a word, no. you can’t do this, at least, not with any degree of certainty that your mix will stay there. YouTube is quite clear about this. Having said that, in practice a lot of people seem to get away with it, but it doesn’t matter what you write in the credits, it’s not permitted. What often happens is that the copyright holders agree to let ads be shown on infringing videos, which they take a cut of the royalties from, and all is OK; but what also happens is that you may be warned, and even banned, from using YouTube.
Our best advice is to use a site designed for legally hosting DJ mixes such as Mixcloud – or if you’re hell bent on using YouTube, do it as a secondary place to host your mixes, and using a secondary YouTube account you’re happy to have taken from you in the future should you run into problems.
What’s your experience with uploading DJ mixes to YouTube? Any ideas you’d like to share with us? What service do you use? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Phil Morse
