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News

Exploring YouTube Shorts Revenue Sharing and Music Updates

Jourdan Aldredge

Oct 3, 2022

Big changes are set to come to YouTube Shorts. According to reports last week from YouTube, the popular online video sharing and social media platform is set to revamp several aspects to its YouTube Shorts program.

Best known to many as the brand’s foray into short-form video content similar to TikTok, YouTube has decided to open up the format for full revenue sharing capabilities.

Which, for aspiring content creators, YouTube specialists, or even indie filmmakers or marketing executives, means there could be a shift in the video industry.

Let’s explore this news a bit more in-depth, plus see how you might plan to adjust your YouTube video content creation plans for the future.

YouTube Shorts monetization

As we cover much more in-depth in our full guide to YouTube monetization, it was always the plan for YouTube Shorts to follow in suit similar to YouTube’s main content channel. And with these big changes to its Partner Program announced last week, YouTube is set to open up revenue channels to a whole new generation of content creators.

Originally launched back in 2007, the YouTube Partner Program has been the gold standard for online video content creators as they’ve allowed talented artists, creators, and brands to become millionaires and build vast empires.

But, when YouTube Shorts was launched in 2020, the same revenue sharing capabilities were not shared across platforms. A temporary Shorts Fund was tested in 2021-2022, but the end goal was always going to inevitably lead to full integration.

Well, that day is finally set to come.

When will YouTube Shorts monetization begin

As of right now, YouTube has announced that their YouTube partners program will begin opening up eligibility for YouTube shorts early next year.

“This unique business model means we only succeed when our creators do. And creators are succeeding — these creator entrepreneurs are building successful businesses of their own with employees and full-fledged operations.” — Amjad Hanif (Vice President of Creator Products).

The criteria for qualifying for monetization and revenue sharing is also currently set to remain the same whether creators are on regular YouTube channels or creating Shorts as users will be allowed to apply for the Partner Program once they have both 10 million Shorts views and 1,000 subscribers (over a 90 day period).

YouTube Creator Music

youtube shorts revenue

Buried in this announcement about the opening up of the YouTube Partner Program for Shorts, there was also news of YouTube planning to launch their very own online music catalog called “Creator Music” which aims to allow YouTube creators to license copyright music for their video content.

YouTube hasn't provided too many details about this project just yet though, and there is no word on how this might differ from their YouTube Audio Library which already has a limited selection of free-to-use songs for creators.

According to reports, this YouTube Creator Music library is set to enter a beta test phase here later this year before potentially launching sometime in 2023. If anything though, this is further proof that content creation will only continue to grow as well as shift to follow new trends and formats.

And YouTube will always aim to open up its revenue and provide sharing opportunities with creators of any size or industry.

Further reading

Be sure to stay tuned for more news and updates. In the meantime check out some additional articles from the Soundstripe blog here: