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The 2024 claiming window for YouTube accrued royalties began on February 1, covering royalties accrued during 2022. YouTube undergoes an annual process of clearing royalties from previous earning periods, and this year, 2024, is no exception.

The claiming window will close on April 30, giving rights holders a limited time to claim their accrued royalties. Muserk’s A.I. matching technology M-MATCH was initially deployed to handle the challenge posed by the inherent sparseness of the accrued royalty data and its large volume. Over the past year, it has become just one feature of our new end-to-end rights management and monetization platform, Blue Matter.

Lastly, as a reminder, due to the vast array of content formats available across all of YouTube’s products, only a portion of its music usage falls under section 115 compulsory licensing handled by the MLC. Therefore, the remaining unmatched royalties will be claimed and distributed through the YouTube Accrued Royalties Program.

What do “Straight Outta Compton” and the Futurama theme – along with thousands of songs in between – have in common? They all sampled the drum break from The Winstons’ “Amen, Brother.” Recorded in 1969, “Amen, Brother” was released as a B-side to their single “Color Him Father.” While the “Color Him Father” hit #7 on the Hot 100 (#65 for the year) “Amen, Brother” didn’t even chart. However, during the early years of hip-hop, the drum break at ~1:26, played by Gregory Coleman, became a very popular loop with DJs and MCs. As hip-hop grew in popularity and looping moved beyond turntables to samplers, the Amen Break made its way into the mainstream and was picked up my other genres.  This playlist is is just a sample of arguably the most popular sample in history, from the early use in Hip-hop to the break away to Jungle/Drum and Bass, to its use in other popular genres.

For you music history buffs, take some time for this 20 min documentary for a detailed story of the Amen Break. There is too many important details to cram in the paragraph above!

For the music fan obssesed with the forensics of music who wants to dig deep in to loops and samples from this era that continue to have influece on modern music, start by checking out :

James Brown’s “Funky Drummer,”

Lyn Collins’ “Think (about it),”

The Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache.”

The 2022 claiming window for the YouTube accrued royalties will begin on February 1. This will be for royalties accrued during 2020. Every year YouTube goes through the process of clearing royalties from previous earnings periods and just like 2021, 2022 is unique:

“Even though YouTube delivered its share of the $424 million of unclaimed royalties to the MLC, this only represents a fraction of what is awaiting a claim. Because of the wide variety of content formats available across all of YouTube’s products only a portion of YouTube’s music usage is subject to section 115 compulsory licensing handled by the MLC. Therefore the rest of YouTube’s unmatched royalties are claimed and distributed through the YouTube Accrued Royalties Program.”
The claiming window will end April 31.

Muserk’s A.I. matching technology M-MATCH was first deployed as a tool to handle the challenge both the inherent sparseness of the accrued royalty data and its sheer volume. Over the past year it has become just one feature of our new end-to-end rights management and monetization platform, Blue Matter.

The 2021 claiming window for the YouTube Accrued Royalties Program is well underway. At the beginning of this year – and every year since 2017 – Muserk began the process of claiming sound recordings on YouTube that have generated royalties but are being held for unknown copyright holders. These royalties are now awaiting a link from a rightful owner.

Even though YouTube delivered its share of the $424 million of unclaimed royalties to the MLC, this only represents a fraction of what is awaiting a claim. Because of the wide variety of content formats available across all of YouTube’s products only a portion of YouTube’s music usage is subject to section 115 compulsory licensing handled by the MLC. Therefore the rest of YouTube’s unmatched royalties are claimed and distributed through the YouTube Accrued Royalties Program. 

Muserk’s A.I. matching technology M-MATCH was first deployed as a tool to handle the challenge both the inherent sparseness of the accrued royalty data and its sheer volume. With improvements year over year, and now powered by Muserk’s distributed computing system, M-PAC and M-MATCH,  our rights management team is poised to outdo itself, again.