Copyright and Dance: Music
Using music in your dance videos
The music you select as background to your practical or dance reel video is also protected by copyright, and it has multiple layers of protection. The musical works—songs and compositions—are protected by copyright, but the actual sound recordings of those songs and compositions have a separate copyright. What makes this more complex, is that the rights owners for the song and the sound recording of that song are often not the same parties.
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What Musicians Should Know about Copyrightfrom U.S. Copyright Office
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Music Modernization Act (MMA)from U.S. Copyright Office
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Music Licensing for Your Choreographyfrom California State University Long Beach (CSULB)
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What Is Music Copyright? How Does It Affect Dancers?from STEEZY, a startup company of dancers in Los Angeles
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How To Make A Dance Reel For Your Professional Dance Careerfrom STEEZY, a startup company of dancers in Los Angeles
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Your Career: When Music Meets Movementfrom DANCE Magazine
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Guidelines for posting potentially copyrighted material on your social media accountsfrom Colorado State University
YouTube information for music in your videos
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How Content ID works"Using a database of audio and visual files submitted by copyright owners, Content ID identifies matches of copyright-protected content. When a video is uploaded to YouTube, it's automatically scanned by Content ID."
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Get permission to use someone else's content"If you plan to include copyright-protected material in your video, you’ll generally need to seek permission to do so first. YouTube cannot grant you these rights."
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Use music and sound effects from the Audio Library"In the Audio Library in YouTube Studio, you can find royalty-free production music and sound effects to use in your videos."
Alternatives
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Free Music ArchiveMuch of the music on this site is protected by copyright, but Creative Commons licenses allow for certain usages. Some of the music has been donated to the public domain. See FAQ: "How can I search for songs by license type?"
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Free Music Archive: FAQ for VideosThis FAQ answers all your questions about using a song from Free Music Archive in your video.
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SoundcloudSearch → Tracks → Filter results by either “To modify commercially” OR "To use commercially" → Check license on individual tracks you’re interested in using. (Any music you include in a video you post on YouTube or any other social media platform is a commercial use of that music.)
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Creative Commons: Legal Music For VideosThere are 6 different Creative Commons licenses. You can only use works that are licensed with CC-BY, or Creative Commons Attribution. This is because of the particulars of your use scenario of a dance reel video on YouTube. Some of the other CC licenses may be applicable to a choreography you create for a practical.
Fair use and music in your videos
Similar to evaluating your intended use of copyright-protected choreographies in your video, you can also evaluate your intended use of music to see if it's fair.
- Including any phrase, such as, “Used under fair use” OR “Copyright infringement not intended” does absolutely nothing to protect you from copyright infringement claims. This is a myth.
- Even if you evaluate your use of the copyrighted works—the choreographies, the song—and think your use is fair, that does not prevent any copyright owner from accusing you of infringement.
- Creating a dance reel video for self-promotion is not an educational use.
- Not all educational uses are fair.
- Not all commercial uses are infringements.
Fair use is based on four different factors. Learn more about fair use on the main copyright research guide.
It took this mom from Pennsylvania eight years in court to get a huge win for fair use when her 29-second use of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" in a YouTube video of her toddler dancing got flagged by an employee at Universal Music Group, who then submitted a takedown notice to YouTube.