To make things clear: I do not support the use of copyrighted material on Youtube or anywhere else. Musicians and all other artists should be payed for their work. But the measures Youtube has recently taken to prevent the use of copyrighted audio just don’t work. Youtube analyses the audio in the video’s you upload and when the system matches it succesfully to copyrighted audio, all the audio get’s muted. If so, Youtube will show you the following copyright message:
Your video, Video with copyrighted music , may include audio content that is owned or licensed by WMG and audio content that is owned or licensed by UMG
As a result, the audio track of your video is muted.
The problem is, when you have put a lot of time and effort in editing your video’s and the audio is a mix of copyrighted material and source (non-copyrighted) audio, all your audio gets muted! In example, when uploading a Ferrari video with an intro that contains a song from Guns ‘n Roses and the main part with Ferrari scenes you have filmed yourself all the audio gets muted because of that intro. Now, everybody knows watching a Ferrari video is a lot less fun without the audio.
I don’t know exactly what deals Youtube has with different labels because with some songs the audio isn’t muted. You do receive a copyright message but by showing an iTunes ad of the song in question the video uploader/author doesn’t have to undertake any actions. Seems like the perfect solution for me. But since this is not the case for all copyrighted music we need a solution for the audio that does get muted.
The Solution
What you need to do is pitch the audio just a little bit. Your viewers probably won’t even notice but Youtube will not recognize your music as copyrighted. So how to do that? I’ll explain it for one application, which free of charge. The method is the same for almost all other audio/video editing software.
Audacity
1. Download and install Audacity.
2. Open your music file.
3. Go to: Effect –> Change pitch…
4. Enter -0.5 semitones (half-steps)
5. Press OK.
6. Export your audio.
7. That’s it! You’re done Youtube probably will not recognize your music. If it does, try pitching the audio a bit more.
Video Tutorial
An Example
GNR – Welcome to the Jungle (original audio)
GNR – Welcome to the Jungle (pitched audio)
To honor the King of Pop a beautiful version of Billie Jean. Performed on 3FM dutch radio show “Giel” in 2008 by Jason Mraz and Nikki:
by jodessi
28 Jul 2009 at 00:18
well how do you add the piched part to your video that wut i don;t get…
by KaiserSoze
28 Jul 2009 at 17:35
you can do that with any video editing software. Try windows movie maker (free) or adobe premiere (not free)
by Massi
30 Aug 2009 at 19:47
Not working for my!!!!!!!! stil the same effect even if i (instead of 0.5) use 1.0 semitones !!!!
by KaiserSoze
30 Aug 2009 at 21:11
Try a negative value, eg: -0,5 or -1. If that doesn’t work either try to find a live performance of the song.
by Eini
28 Oct 2009 at 21:56
Many, many thanx for your Tutorial Video!!! *Knutscha for you* –<—<—@
by CE
27 Jan 2010 at 22:46
lowering the pitch by -1 halftone worked for me, but the audio sounded pretty weird. lowering by -.5 halftone did NOT work.
by KaiserSoze
28 Jan 2010 at 15:25
CE, you mentioned both of the big disadvantages of my method. It is true that lowering with -.5 semitones isn’t always enough to fool Youtube. And yes, it also true some songs will be noticeably changed. But untill there’s a better way to do this, i’d say it’s always better than having no sound/music at all!
by joe gonzalez
09 Feb 2010 at 09:00
i got this to work once but now i’m having a problem and i cant figure it out. i open my music file with audacity and it plays the whole song super fast, in a tiny fraction of a second. I changed the pitch and exported it as mp3 but when it opens in my itunes, it plays the same, hyper fast speed. what am i doing wrong? PLEASE HELP!
by Henry Anderson
03 May 2010 at 19:07
i will really miss the King of Pop. michael jackson is truly the best pop artist in this lifetime.`,:
by rosch
28 Nov 2011 at 01:21
lol u funny funny guy, totally irrelivant but also very true! you made me laugh when i read this so i had to reply
by Lost&Confused
17 May 2010 at 23:06
hi, i just tried that. even changed the pitch to 1. it still is being recognized and muting my videos. is there another thing i need to change?
by Samad
17 Jan 2011 at 09:50
doesn’t work
by KaiserSoze
17 Jan 2011 at 21:14
@Samad, i must admit the method isn’t solid as a rock as it doesn’t always work. Until then the only thing you might want to try is to pitch it even further, altough this might make your music really crap.
by Ken
25 Jan 2011 at 16:19
Thanks, this works for me.
by test
12 Feb 2011 at 03:42
test
by TUTORIALS
12 Feb 2011 at 04:45
Nice article. I like it
by NPT VIDEO GAME
12 Feb 2011 at 05:09
Love it, thanks alot.
by Web Tutorials
12 Feb 2011 at 05:16
I enjoy your blog. I
by Web345345 Video Tutorials
14 Feb 2011 at 22:35
VOt i vse
by JS TESTING
15 Feb 2011 at 14:34
TESTING JS
by JS TESTING 77
15 Feb 2011 at 14:36
TESTING JS77
by John
22 Feb 2011 at 10:56
Did anyone test whether pitch bending is the only successful effect to apply, or will any other effects have a desired result as well? (such as echo or change tempo). Thanks!
by KaiserSoze
22 Feb 2011 at 20:11
Hmm good one, didn’t test it myself but it should probably work. Tempo probably works better than echo but changing tempo is much like changing pitch. Let me know about your results if you do test it :)
by TaraLenexa
02 Mar 2011 at 01:34
Is it possible to simply play the music outside the computer environment and re-record, convert to mp3 and re-add to the video? I can’t figure out what element is being tracked — and wonder if that might remove the tracking element.
by KaiserSoze
02 Mar 2011 at 09:56
Nope your idea probably won’t help because there is no tracking element. Youtube matches your audio against a database using some sort of fingerprint system. More info on the fingerprint system and other solutions that might work are found here: http://www.csh.rit.edu/~parallax/
by Ioana
19 Mar 2011 at 22:52
Thanks,
It helped a lot! :)
Big ups!
by Richard
22 May 2011 at 17:10
Hi
Great article! I followed your advice and eventually got this – but they haven’t muted the audio as yet.
Copyright Info: Ghost town of SignatureIT@Fahrenheit 88, KL
Your video, Ghost town of SignatureIT@Fahrenheit 88, KL , may include content that is owned or administered by these entities:
Entity: Warner Chappell Content Type: Musical Composition
What should I do?
No action is required on your part. Your video is still available worldwide. In some cases ads may appear next to your video.
But with my past videos, the last time I got a warning like “Matched third party content. View Copyright Info.” beside my video, it took them a few days to a week to eventually do some kind of changes/restrictions on it.
So I guess it may be a matter of time before they ‘catch up’ and catch ya.
Thanks anyway. (PS Im working to test changing the tempo -1.00 as well and will report the outcome here if this works)
by KaiserSoze
25 May 2011 at 08:38
@Richard The audio insn’t always muted by Youtube if the music is recognised. In some cases, like your song now, they show ads on how to buy that music instead of muting it all together.
by j
31 May 2011 at 21:15
it’s fucking working :) thank’s
by Ekat
29 Jun 2011 at 19:24
The song sounds completely different, but I still liked how it sounds, so I uploaded the video with the song, but Youtube still recognized it and removed my video.
Any suggestions?
by KrystakKloudFF Utube Editor
12 Jul 2011 at 14:48
Yes. Change the pitch by 5.0 instead of 0.5. At 0.5 it’s too little of a difference for YouTube not to notice.
by KrystakKloudFF Utube Editor
12 Jul 2011 at 14:47
Seriously? Change the pitch by 5.0. I have been doing this for years and KNOW that 0.5 will get you caught. XD At a 5.0 change you can easily be assured that you will not get caught with audio infringement. Damn I should teach this to children. xD
by KaiserSoze
12 Jul 2011 at 15:17
You are probably right, but as said in the article. It’s better to start with a small change and alter the pitch more and more until it doesn’t get recognized anymore. This way you’ll be having the best mix between the original song and not get muted.
by carlos
13 Jul 2011 at 21:24
It worked!!!!
Thanks loads. Man that was a tough nut to crack until I read your page. Thanks again!
by liz
29 Jul 2011 at 19:21
Got the notice but its up and running still(72 hours)…about 4 different songs from same artist. WMG was the label…do you know if they are totally hard-core?How long it takes them to silence me and if you suggest pulling it now and doing the sound pitch technique. Just wondering if I have a chance of slipping past or if its GUARANTEED TO HAPPEN.
by Dat V
22 Aug 2011 at 05:13
Thanks a lot!
It is worked!!!
by Naeem
26 Aug 2011 at 16:55
its work thanks dude i love you
by superjohn
04 Sep 2011 at 00:30
This method worked great for me. I put up a photo slideshow with the backing track “Transitions” by the Beastie Boys. Youtube immediately blocked it in UK., USA etc etc because of EMI copyright. After dropping the audio 0.5 semitones, Youtube allowed the video in all regions, although I did get a “might be the property of UMPG” warning. In the end I dropped it a whole semitone because it sounded better (I have perfect pitch), whihc gave the same warning as a 0.5 drop.
I can live with the UMPG warning, as you can still watch the video OK.
Cheers! John
by tvfreak
14 Oct 2011 at 07:48
Hi :)
Thanks for this… I was just planning to make a Youtube account based on tributes to films and stuff (But the obvious problem was the copyright)
Can I also become a Partner on Youtube even with this changing the pitch thing?
by GgH
06 Nov 2011 at 20:54
@TvFreak
It’s Impossible to become a partner if your videos contain content that was created by someone else, especially movie montages, tributes, remixes etc. Unless you get the license to the movie from the distributor but I doubt you’d, have the cash for that.
by Faith
05 Dec 2011 at 21:59
Its not even letting me changed the pitch :/
by Tracy
23 Jan 2012 at 01:54
The sound on my 11 minute video was muted by YouTube. I followed the instructions above and just changed the pitch by -0.50 and it now works on YouTube with no problems! Thanks so much. I had absolutely no problems changing it or making it work on YouTube.
by silvius
27 Jan 2012 at 20:47
So will you get caught if u change the pitch with 0.5 semitones?I’m afraid of trying this,i know that i could easily get wmg-ed and I know that if I get caught too many times uploading copyrighted material (including music owned by WMG),my channel will be deleted.I’m planning to upload romanian music (if you ever heard of Romania,congratulations!),but will they ever recognize it?I doubt YouTube admins know any bit of romanian language (cause I live in Romania),and I don’t know if romanian song writters know how to mute my videos either.I think combining more effects at a song may work.Try it yourself and tell me if it works,please!