From 10 August 2026, YouTube will keep only free tracks and revenue-sharing tracks in its Creator Music tool and remove paid one-time licences from the catalogue. Unused licences bought in advance will be refunded automatically by YouTube.
YouTube launched Creator Music in 2022, first as a beta for American creators and a year later in other countries. The company announced it on 20 September 2022 at the Made on YouTube event in Los Angeles, according to Rolling Stone.
The tool solved an old trap. Anyone who put a protected track into a video without a licence lost all revenue from that video through Content ID, in favour of the rights holder, which pushed creators towards music with no reward. Creator Music then gave rights holders a choice: either set a fixed price in advance, or take a share of the video's revenue.
What stays in the offer
Revenue sharing is now the core of the offer. The standard split, under which creators receive 55% of a video's advertising revenue, is reduced for a track from Creator Music by the cost of clearing the music rights. For a single licensed track, the creator's share falls to roughly half the standard rate, and a further deduction for rights of up to 5% applies. When a video uses several tracks, the 55% is divided among them in equal shares.
Length matters too. A licensable track can be bought up front, or put into revenue sharing if it plays for less than thirty seconds in a video longer than three minutes. Tracks reserved for revenue sharing only can be used at any length and in a video of any duration.
What changes from August
The paid one-time licence, where a creator buys a track and keeps the entire revenue from the video, disappears from the offer. Until 10 August 2026 it can still be bought and used. Licences already paid for and unused will be refunded by YouTube, and tracks that creators have already assigned to videos stay valid until they expire. The company justifies the step in its help centre as an effort to “better align with the preferences of our creator and music partner community”.
In July, a screenshot of the Creator Music interface circulated on X, presented as a new tool that lets creators prepay for a licence or set a revenue share to avoid demonetisation. YouTube's documentation, however, describes the opposite movement: away from the paid one-time licence and towards a free or revenue-share model. The interface shown in the screenshot exists, but what changes is what remains of it after August.
Who this affects
Creator Music is available only to creators in the US YouTube Partner Programme. European creators do not have access to it and handle commercial music in their videos through catalogues that individual platforms negotiate with rights holders. The change primarily affects the US market, but it sets a pattern for how YouTube approaches music licensing globally.
The model in which a creator pays once and keeps all the revenue from the video is thus ending on YouTube. After August, access to commercial music runs through free tracks or through a revenue share, which keeps part of the revenue and control with rights holders.
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