Follow these steps to avoid having licensed music removed from your YouTube videos
If you've ever tried to legally inject a copyrighted song into your YouTube video (meaning you licensed it or otherwise own the song in question), you know it can be an exercise in frustration. It's not that using music is difficult—the problem stems from YouTube's sometimes overzealous efforfts to keep everything on the up and up. Even though you have permission to use an audio track, or own the copyrighted song, YouTube may take down your video, essentially claiming you're a copyright crook. Have it happen enough times and you might even find yourself banned.
Part of the issue has to do with Content ID, which is a system YouTube uses to look for copyrighted music. It automatically scans every video that gets uploaded and sniffs out potential copyright violations, but one of the problems with Content ID is that it only identifies the song, not the license. Alternately, someone can file a copyright claim on music contained in your video and, well, it can be a hassle.
Well folks, the good news is there's a relatively easy way avoid the headache of having your video removed from YouTube over false copyright concerns. Here's how.
Obtain Permission
The first thing you need to do is make sure you have permission to use the copyrighted song you want in your video. Depending on the song, this can be relatively easy or a bit of pain in the backside, and potentially time consuming. Be that as it may, it's necessary if you're not trying to skirt the law.
You can request permission from major music labels by using the following links:
For other labels and music rights holders, you'll need to do some digging on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or whatever happens to be your search engine of choice.
Or Use YouTube's Catalog of Music
If you don't want to go out and license music on your own, you can swap out audio tracks on your video using YouTube's audio swapping tool. Here's the thing—YouTube possesses over 150,000 tracks that are free to use, and since they've all been pre-approved, you don't have to worry about a copyright claim yanking your video offline.
YouTube provides plenty of free music to add to your videos.
You can find step-by-step instructions by clicking here, though if your click finger is sore, here's what you do:
Go to your Video Manager page, and click the arrow next to Edit on the video you'd like to edit
In the drop-down menu, click the Audio button
Select a track by clicking on it and preview your video with the music track added
Search for a track using the search box, or browse by genre using the Featured Tracks tab
Once you've found a track you like, click the Save button, and the new audio will be applied to your video. Audio tracks can be positioned in a precise part of your video using the Position Audio feature.
That's it, you're finished, there's nothing more to see here. For the rest of you, move on to the next step.
Be Audacious and Grab Audacity
If you routinely work with music files, then you've probably heard of Audacity. And if not, well, here's your chance to get acquainted with the program. It's free, open-source, and works on multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac, and GNU/Linux. You can grab Audacity here.
What we're going to do with Audacity is ever-so-slightly alter the speed and pitch of the copyrighted song that you licensed. By doing this, it throws YouTube off the scent and greatly reduces the risk that your video will be taken down.
Once you've installed Audacity, fire it up and load your song inyo the program. You can either drag-and-drop the music file into Audacity, or load it the old-school way: File > Open and select your song.
With your song loaded into Audacity, go ahead and highlight the length of the track. Since there's no "Select All" option, the easiest way to do this is to click the gray area on the left-hand side. Alternately, you can scroll until you reach the end of the track, click in the gray area, and drag left until you've highlighted the entire song.
Don't go overboard or your altered track will sound noticeably different from the original.
After you've selected the length of the song, it's time to alter the speed. Click on Effect > Change Speed. A pop-up box will appear giving you the ability to speed up or slow down a track, either by dragging the slider or entering a percentage. You don't want to go crazy here, or the song will sound funky, but at the same time, a slight change won't be enough to duck YouTube's filter.
We recommend changing the speed by 0.3 percent—it doesn't matter if you speed it up or slow it down. It will take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to process, depending on the length of the song and your PC. When it's finished, give the altered track a listen. With such a small change in speed, only the most discerning ears should be able to notice a difference.
You'll need Lame to save to MP3 files with Audacity.
If you're happy with the result, go to File > Export Audio and save the track to WAV or MP3. If you choose MP3, you may get a message letting you know that Audacity needs the file lame_enc.dll. Don't sweat it—just hit the Download button (or click here) and follow the instructions.
Pitch Imperfect
If changing the speed doesn't do the trick and/or you want to err on the side of caution, you can also alter the pitch. The steps are mostly the same—load up your music file and highlight the entire track, but this time select "Change Pitch" from the Effect menu.
Alter the pitch too much and it will sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks hijacked your track.
Under the Frequency heading, there's a Percent Change box. We suggest changing the pitch anywhere from 3 to 5 percent in either direction (for slower songs or tracks with an emphasis on instrumentals, like bluegrass, you'll probably have better results with negative percent changes). Try it one way and give it a listen. If you don't like the result, go to Edit and select Undo Change Pitch. Try again in the other direction and/or alter the percentage.
Upload and Enjoy!
All that's left now is to upload your slightly altered, licensed music track to your YouTube video. It's still possible that a person could manually report your video, so you may want to leave a note letting viewers know that you licensed the copyrighted song(s) in your video.
NOTE: Maximum PC does not condone the stealing of copyrighted material, so we do suggest that you ask for permission whenever possible.
If you routinely have to call the fire department to come and cool down your rig, it's time to reevaluate things. The good news is, you don't need to spend a fortune getting adequate cooling, nor do you have to dabble in liquid if you don't want to. Just check out today's top deal for an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2 CPU Cooler for $18 with free shipping (normally $25 - use coupon code: [EMCASAS25]). It's inexpensive, cools well, is quiet, and is backed by a 6-year limited warranty.
We have to hand it to graphics cards players -- they've been pretty good about bundling high-end titles with their cards over the last couple of years. That doesn't just apply to Nvidia and AMD, but their hardware partners as well. Case in point, EVGA today announced that for a limited time, qualifying GeForce GTX 980 and GeForce 970 graphics cards will be eligible to receive The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Batman: Arkham Knight.
As always with these sorts of promotions, they apply to specific SKUs. You also must make your purchase either direct from EVGA's website or a participating etailer. You can find a list of qualifying cards here, along with instructions on how to obtain and redeem your free game codes. Additionally, you can find a list of participating etailers here, just make sure to double check the model number.
The offer is good for purchases made on or after today, May 5th, and while supplies last. And if you're not looking to jump up to a GTX 980 or GTX 970, you can still score The Witcher 3 with the purchase of a GeForce GTX 960, details of which can be found here.
Surface 3 (non-Pro) is Microsoft's thinnest and lightest Surface tablet ever, and it's now available to purchase in the U.S. and several other territories, including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. Pricing starts at $499, though you can knock up to $150 off the cost by trading in your Surface 2 or Surface RT, so long as it's in working order.
The amount you get in trade-in depends on which model you're trading in. All working Surface RT slates command $100 in trade-in value, regardless of whether they're equipped with 32GB or 64GB of storage. And all Surface RT models go for $150. Microsoft's offer doesn't increase if you include a Type Cover or Type Keyboard, so you're better off hawking those on eBay or Craigslist.
Surface 3 is a toned down version of the Surface 3 Pro. It's more tablet than laptop, whereas you could argue the reverse for the latter (at least when pairing it with a keyboard). The models that are available now include:
Surface 3 w/ 2GB RAM, 64GB storage, Wi-Fi ($499)
Surface 3 w/ 4GB RAM, 128GB storage, Wi-Fi ($599)
Surface 3 features a 10.8-inch display with a Full HD 1080p resolution, 3-position kickstand, quad-core Intel Atom processor, full-size USB 3.0 port, mini DisplayPort, microSD card reader, headset jack, cover port, micro USB charging port, and Windows 8.1. Models with 4G LTE connectivity baked in are "coming soon," with no mention of price just yet.
For the sake of comparison, the Surface Pro 3 has a 12-inch display with a 2160x1440 resolution, multi-position kickstand, Intel Core i3/i5/i7 processor options, the same collection of inputs/outputs (save for the micro USB charging port), and Windows 8.1 pro. Battery life is slightly less at 9 hours versus 10 hours.
If you're a student, parent of a student, or faculty member, you can save 10 percent by shopping through Microsoft's Education Store. For everyone else, you can go here to order a Surface 3 at regular pricing. Trade-in site is found here.
Mushkin seems awfully excited about the expansion of its Reactor Series solid state drive line, which in addition to its existing 1TB capacity option, will soon be made available in 256GB and 512GB capacities. To celebrate the new SKUs and perhaps earn some street cred in the crowded SSD market, Mushkin is also holding a contest where the main prize is a Mushkin Extreme Gaming PC.
First let's talk about the drives. The Reactor SSD family uses Silicon Motion's SM2246EN controller and is equipped with a SATA 6Gbps interface. Rated sequential read and write speeds are up to 560MB/s and 460MB/s, respectively, along with up to 74,000 IOPS for random 4K reads and up to 76,000 IOPS for random 4K writes. Note that those are the performance figures for the 1TB capacity -- Mushkin hasn't said whether the 256GB and 512GB drives will boast the same metrics.
As far as the 1TB drive goes, it's reasonably priced on Newegg at $340, or 34 cents per gigabyte. Pricing for the lower capacity drives hasn't yet been announced.
Now, about that contest.
"To celebrate the expansion of our very popular Reactor SSD starting May 1, 2015, gaming fans can enter our Ghost Recon Phantoms Sweepstakes for a chance to win up a custom built Mushkin Extreme Gaming PC and much more," said Nicolas Villalobos, Director of Global Marketing at Mushkin Inc. "As part of the celebration fans who purchase select Mushkin products through Newegg.com will also receive a Ghost Recon Phantoms $30 Value game code – free"
There are several prizes up for grabs, including various gaming gear from Razer and DXRACER. You can read the official rules here and enter for a chance to win here.
Follow these steps to avoid having licensed music removed from your YouTube videos
Free games, anyone?
A shiney new Surface
New capacities and a new contest
