Podsafe Music

Music is an essential component in any video. It's questionable whether they distribute the works rather than just pointing in the right direction, since most of these networks don't host any copyrighted material but rather index it. "To the public" is also in question, since it has been argued that the file sharing programs are used by a limited group of people.

The cynical person might see this as a way to steer more people into the Vimeo Music Store, but copyright holders have been putting serious pressure on the company to develop a better way of detecting non-licensed material, so this was bound to happen sooner or later.

If it is (which most songs probably are), the owner of the original content is notified. Music is protected by copyright law, which provides exclusive rights to copyright owners to perform or play their songs. Fair use rules apply, so the new video content that you post has to be ‘transformative' from the original YouTuber.

YouTube uses a technology called Content ID to check for videos infringing copyright. Subsequent sections on the permission rules for particular types of creative works will advise you on how to locate owners. This non-profit organisation collects and distributes royalties to those that own the rights to recording and distributing works in any format such as videos, DVDs, CDs, computer games and downloads etc.

A work is automatically under copyright protection from the moment of creation, but to legally file for copyright infringement the copyright must be registered with the copyright office. Under the fair use doctrine, you could reproduce a few lines Copyright free music for other users to download for free of a song lyric in a music review without getting permission from the songwriter (or whoever owns the copyright in the song).