YouTube is one of my favorite platforms as an artist. I post my original tracks as well as mixes and mashups all on my channel. Two months ago I also began live streaming there as well using Restream.io (affiliate link). I love YouTube because of the number of tools they offer creators as well as its reach. I also love its amazing content ID system which does a remarkable job identifying songs and giving rights-holders granular control over their content.
You can use a lot of commercial music on YouTube, as long as you’re willing to give any monetization to the rights holders. If you’re pre-planning a video that includes copyrighted music, you can upload it as “private” to verify the status of particular songs.
The challenge for me (and many DJs) is with live streaming to YouTube. While YouTube used to offer the Music Policy Directory of songs, it is no longer updated and going away soon. So, if I stream 25 tracks and three of them are blocked, my live stream video becomes choppy after I’m forced to snip out the segments with blocked content before it gets posted. It’s frustrating for me as a DJ but I also hate that the artist isn’t getting paid for their track being streamed either. I’ll have a podcast on this tomorrow.
Because of this I’ve started flagging tracks in my library that are banned (blocked from being seen) on YouTube. I decided to share it here and keep updating it in the hopes that it will help some other DJs avoid choppy live streams. If you are trying to find a particular song on the page use CTRL+F to search. If you’d like to add other tracks you’ve had blocked just leave a comment below.
Songs That are Blocked Everywhere
- John Legend – Wild (MEDUZA Extended Remix)
- Everything But the Girl – Missing
- DJs From Mars – Somewhere Above the Clouds
- Garreth Emry – Fight the Sunrise
- Imany – Don’t Be So Shy
- Green Velvet – Bigger Than Prince (Hot Since 82 Remix)
- Katy Perry – Daisies (Marc Stout Remix)
- Pegboard Nerds – Hero (feat. Elizaveta)
- Energy (LO’99 Extended Remix) – Stace Cadet, KLP
- Big In Japan (Magic Nights 12”) – Alex Midi
Songs that Are Blocked Overseas (but OK in the United States)
- 3LAU, XIRA – Tokyo (feat. XIRA) (Le Youth Remix)
- Melanie Pfirrman, Pitbull, IAmChino – Suda (Dave Aude Remix)
- Move Your Body (Extended Mix) – Marshall Jefferson, Solardo
- Lollipop (Extended Mix) – Sevenn
