
Fair Play: Asserting Fair Use in the Age of Content ID As YouTube's algorithm snags copyrighted songs, music educators struggle to assert their fair-use rights and keep their content online.
By
Sarah Godcher Murphy
June 2, 2023
Illustration by Bruce Wymer
Over the past decade, many music educators have embraced YouTube as a platform to share educational content, reach a broader range of students, and, hopefully, supplement their income with a bit of ad revenue. The platform is hugely popular with music students of all skill levels, providing everything from beginner guitar lessons to in-depth analysis of iconic jazz solos. More than any other social media, YouTube connects independent learners with teachers who can help them.
While this may sound like a match made in heaven, the platform's copyright management policies create roadblocks for educators who post instructional videos on the site. YouTube uses a digital fingerprinting system known as Content ID to automatically scan every video uploaded to the platform, searching for copyright-protected material. Excerpts of songs as brief as five seconds can result in a video being flagged or taken down for copyright infringement, even though the video may be perfectly legal under the fair use doctrine, which allows educators to use copyrighted songs as examples of the concepts they are teaching.
Adam Neely
Image by Liz Maney
But what is legally considered fair use isn't always straightforward. What may be fine for a closed educational system like a college or middle school becomes much murkier in the wide-open-and revenue-generating-world of YouTube. Let's say, for example, you are teaching a lesson on how to reharmonize a jazz standard. In all likelihood, your lesson would include excerpts of recorded music, illustrating various harmonic approaches used by artists over the years. In the classroom environment, this undoubtedly would be considered fair use.
But if you were to record this lesson and upload it to YouTube-sharing your lesson with the platform's 2.6 billion users-your right to fair use isn't so clear cut. Because Content ID is fully automated, the system cannot distinguish fair use exceptions from outright piracy-which means that educational content gets ensnared just as easily as bootlegged copies of Beyonc 's latest single. And, once a video has been flagged, the copyright holder can opt to have the video removed, thereby deleting the educator's lesson.
Adam Neely B.M. '09 has experienced this problem firsthand. As one of the most popular and beloved music educators on YouTube, with 1.69 million subscribers, Neely says that nearly all the content on his channel has been flagged for copyright infringement.
I think-and many of the other people on YouTube also think-that this is an issue of fair use, he says. We legally have the right to use these small snippets for purposes of commentary and analysis.
Neely creates video essays and lessons that use brief clips of recorded music (each less than 10 seconds long) interwoven with his thoughts on everything from music theory and history to psychology and pop culture. The resulting videos feel like a lecture delivered by your favorite college professor crossed with a clever talk show host; and they're highly polished, cleverly edited, and consistently funny, says Spin magazine.
If I'm trying to make some kind of broader cultural or music theory or historical reference, I need to be able to use that bit of the copyrighted work; otherwise my commentary is meaningless, Neely says. There is no other way of doing it in the medium of YouTube.
Associate Professor Tomo Fujita, who launched his YouTube channel in 2019, strongly agrees, adding that YouTube has become an essential tool for connecting with students online. It's the only way. On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, people say amazing stuff, but that's all. They just talk, talk, talk, he says. Those [platforms] are just making buzz. It doesn't do anything about anything unless you have a YouTube.
Fujita's approach to videos feels more personal-something akin to a private lesson in his home, during which he shares not only guitar instruction, but also life stories, jokes, and footage of his cat, Dexter. Fujita has built a following of 505,000 subscribers. But, he says, he cannot count on YouTube ad revenue for income, because of copyright issues. I don't really expect [it to make money], he says. But if it does, great.
That's because whenever Content ID nds a copyright-protected song in a video, YouTube allows the copyright holder to appropriate any ad revenue generated by the video. This practice, known as monetization, means that large corporations like Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Chappell Music can take revenue away from educators like Fujita and Neely simply because they used a snippet of a song in one of their videos.
If I'm trying to make some kind of broader cultural or music theory or historical reference, I need to be able to use that bit of the copyrighted work; otherwise my commentary is meaningless.
- Adam Neely
Monetization began as an attempt to protect intellectual property, but has turned into a cash-generating machine for rights holders. According to YouTube's most recent Copyright Transparency Report, because of Content ID, YouTube has created an entirely new revenue stream from ad-supported, user-generated content-paying more than $7.5 billion to rights holders from ads alone as of December 2021. And while Content ID has helped ensure that artists rightfully get paid for their creations, it also ensnares content creators who are acting above-board.
The volume of Content ID claims is staggering. According to the transparency report, copyright holders made approximately 759
North America Stories
01/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/05/2026
LONDON, APRIL 30, 2026 The Post Republic London's Re-recording Mixer and Dialogue Editor Dan Johnson has built a reputation for clean, emotionally resonan...
01/05/2026
Adobe Unveils Powerful New Innovations in Photoshop & Lightroom
Deepa Subramaniam April 30, 2026
0 Comments
Your most tedious creative tasks just got ea...
01/05/2026
Berklee Partners with Santander US to Establish Global Opportunity Fund The $400,000 grant offers students access to experiential learning opportunities withi...
01/05/2026
Student Spotlight: Keziah Thomas The Indian composer, who was named the 2026 student commencement speaker for Berklee College of Music, talks about how shes p...
30/04/2026
The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) concluded its third regular season on Saturday, reporting growth across attendance, viewership, digital engage...
30/04/2026
NBC Sports will air national MLB coverage on Sundays beginning May 3, with MLB Sunday Leadoff on Peacock and NBCSN at 12:30 p.m. ET, followed by the debut of th...
30/04/2026
Clear-Com has appointed Brian Grahn as Market Outreach Manager of the Americas and Ben Turnwell as Business Development Manager for EMEA live.
Grahn joined Cle...
30/04/2026
ARRI has introduced the cforce MAX, a new lens motor for the Hi-5 lens control system. The cforce MAX is twice as fast as the cforce plus motor it replaces whil...
30/04/2026
Knuerr, Voxtronic, and IHSE will jointly present an integrated control room solu...
30/04/2026
The CW Network and ESPN have announced an agreement to make the ESPN App the exclusive streaming home for all CW Sports live events. CW Sports will continue to ...
30/04/2026
Ed Sheeran's The Loop' tour launched in Auckland in January 2026 before moving on to Australia, with South America and the United States to follow late...
30/04/2026
Audinate has announced Dante Preset Creator, a free online tool for configuring Dante network settings before hardware is available on site. Presets created in ...
30/04/2026
Yahoo Sports has announced the appointment of Jarrod Schwarz as General Manager of Yahoo Sports. Schwarz will oversee product, design, and technology; revenue a...
30/04/2026
Nielsen has released a new report, Get Ready with Media Intelligence: 2026 FIFA World Cup Edition, examining U.S. soccer viewership trends, fan engagement, and ...
30/04/2026
USA Lacrosse and SportsEngine have announced an expanded partnership, naming Spo...
30/04/2026
Telos Alliance will participate in the 2026 Media Production and Technology Show (MPTS), taking place May 13-14 at Olympia London. Rather than exhibiting from a...
30/04/2026
The global streamer buys the U.S. DTC platform solutions provider for a reported...
30/04/2026
Tigo Sports, Paraguay's leading sports broadcaster, has upgraded its video infrastructure with Ateme solutions for live encoding, multiplexing, and signal c...
30/04/2026
World Rugby and IMG have announced a long-term media rights partnership focused on growing rugby in the United States ahead of the Men's and Women's Rug...
30/04/2026
For the second year in a row, Overtime and the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) are teaming up through a renewed content partnership to bring fans even...
30/04/2026
The 22-year ESPN vet's responsibilities will reportedly be taken over by SVP Mike Foss...
30/04/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
30/04/2026
Amazon and Duke University have announced a multiyear agreement for Prime Video to present exclusive coverage of three Duke Blue Devils men's basketball neu...
30/04/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
30/04/2026
MELBOURNE, Fla., April 29, 2026 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) today announ...
30/04/2026
MELBOURNE, Fla., April 30, 2026 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) reports first quarter 2026 results.
Highlights
Orders of $7.8 billion; book-to-bill of 1....
30/04/2026
STA VENERA, MALTA, APRIL 29, 2026 CPI Media, a voluntary organization within the Missionary Society of St Paul (MSSP) and a leading media house dedicated to p...
30/04/2026
New software platform delivers comprehensive timing measurement across production workflows...
30/04/2026
Once again, the UK Pavilion in Hall 5 of BroadcastAsia 2026 will feature the latest and best in technology specifically developed and tailored for modern media ...
30/04/2026
Avid powers faster workflows and next-generation immersive audio with latest Pro...
30/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/04/2026
Scalable broadcast-grade production over public internet, replacing traditional OB workflows...
30/04/2026
Live demonstrations highlight LCEVC ecosystem momentum, AI-powered video pipelines, and expansion across broadcast, streaming, and social media.
DTV (TV 3.0) ...
30/04/2026
Student Spotlight: Matthew Leon The dual major shares his path from community college to Berklee, and how his heritage influences his work.
April 29, 2026
B...
30/04/2026
Berklee Artists to Perform at Major Global Music Festivals As part of the Berklee Popular Music Institute, students will perform at Lollapalooza, Governors Ba...
30/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/04/2026
A flexible monitoring platform designed to simplify ST 2110 operations, consolidate vendor tools, and support modern live production environments. See it at NAB...
30/04/2026
Sundance-premiering Run Amok is an expressive, unconventional take on today's teen experience, replete with musical numbers. When cinematographer Shachar ...
30/04/2026
JACKSONVILLE, AL, APRIL 29, 2026 Jacksonville State University, known as Jax State and a proud NCAA Division I member of Conference USA, has transformed its a...
30/04/2026
Transforming viewer and content data into real-time intelligence to deliver relevant streaming experiences at scale
ThinkAnalytics, the global leader in AI-pow...