# Are YouTube videos considered recorded music?



## Newman (May 3, 2012)

Are YouTube videos considered recorded music? Because, if so, then this video that I recently saw posted (it might have been here?) has me amazed! I'd never heard of the Chapman Stick before then. What a beautiful sound!


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I don't believe there is any special definition of "recorded music". All it means is that a performance is captured on audio or video for repeated listening, so, yes, all YouTube videos with music are recordings, whether amateur or professional.


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## mitchflorida (Apr 24, 2012)

Technically, You Tube is recorded video, not recorded music.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Recorded video as opposed to recorded _audio_ - there is still music on the video recording, so it is recorded music.


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## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

-comment deleted by the very handsome Sofronitsky-


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

My first interpretation of the question is: If someone records their own version of a piece not covered by copyright and posts it on YouTube, is it available for anyone to reuse (not covered by a publishing copyright)?

The answer is: If the user selects "Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)" when posting the video, it is available for reuse, BUT if he selects "Standard YouTube License" it is not available for download, copy, or redistribution. You are not allowed to download this audio file for your own use.
It would be rather difficult for him to find you and prosecute you though. The stakes get higher when the distribution is larger.

A quote from one forum that answered this question:
_Media companies seem to think that anything they find on YouTube is fair game, and equally unfortunately, they have the sort of lawyers you wouldn't want to be up against in court. The image sharing service Twitpic recently suffered a PR setback when they amended their ToS to reflect the fact that this happens, and this was interpreted by users as "Twitpic robs you of your copyright". And unfortunately yet again, if you're in the US and you didn't register your copyright, although the TV company still (probably) broke the law, you'll not be able to claim damages and may even have to pay all your legal fees even if you do win._


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