TuneCore Launches YouTube Money to Track Down Unlicensed Music on Platform - The UpStream

TuneCore, a widely-known distribution company, has launched a new project for artists to make money using YouTube. Musicians that have unlicensed music on YouTube can now sign up to YouTube Money and gain ad revenue from these songs.

Here's how it works. Users can pick what songs need to be searched on YouTube. TuneCore's system then jumps deep into YouTube, searching for uses of the track that aren't licensed. Upon identification of the videos, the clips are then monetized and the money made from the video is placed into the artist's account with TuneCore.

TuneCore's CEO Scott Ackerman spoke on the need for YouTube Money.

As YouTube's importance as a point of distribution increases, we want to ensure Artists are receiving the full benefits. With YouTube Money, we're confident TuneCore can help artists by collecting the YouTube revenue artists have earned while artists can focus on what's most important-making music and getting their music out to the world.

Unlicensed music on YouTube is certainly a point of contention for many artists out there, and this service certainly seems to help with that. I do like that instead of videos being muted for an infringing track, the video can simply be monetized for the artist This helps when tracks are playing in the background while a certain show is out on location and they cannot control what happens around them. On the other side, YouTube already does this natively, but I suppose it's better if the major labels aren't getting 90 percent of the revenue from those videos.

To date, TuneCore, prior to naming this program, paid out over $32 million over the past quarter, up 13.2 percent from the last year. TuneCore only charges users $25 per song you want to hunt down on YouTube via YouTube Money.