YouTube Upload Copyright
<p>On YouTube, there are two licenses to choose from, Creative Commons license and Standard YouTube license. Suppose that a composer A wants to post A's music videos on YouTube, but wants to license my music under a different term. Can A just directly state the license in the description, or A would still lose my copyright no matter what? I know copyright can be lost if one licenses their work under CC. Would A lose rights because A posts work on YouTube.</p>

<p>The YouTube Standard License is described in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms" rel="noreferrer">the terms of service</a>. It means that you retain your copyright:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But you also grant YouTube very broad permissions to your content:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, that means YouTube <em>could</em> allow others to use your content by &quot;sublicensing&quot; or &quot;transferring&quot; their license. I never heard of YouTube doing that, but the license terms would allow it if they would decide that they want to.</p>
<p>But without an explicit permission from you <strong>or</strong> from YouTube, people are not allowed to reproduce your content.</p>
<p>Agreeing to those terms (or alternatively to the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="noreferrer">Creative Commons CC-BY terms</a> which <strong>do</strong> allow others to use your content as long as they give attribution) is a condition for using the platform.</p>
<p>You can also put different license terms into the video description. This is called &quot;dual licensing&quot;. But that means that <strong>people get to choose</strong> under which license terms they want to use the content. They can either use YouTube's terms, or your own.</p>

copyright youtube