Have you received this error message after uploading a new video? It can be pretty frustrating after having created your video, waited for it to render, and then waited for it to upload to find out that the audio has been disabled because it has been identified as copywritten. We’ll save the ethical debate for another post. This post is about how exactly you go about circumventing this filter and successfully uploading videos with this sort of audio content.
Of course, just because this works today, does not necessarily mean it will work tomorrow. Also, you will need to be prepared to sacrficie a bit of audio quality (or at least the integrity of the original audio).
The Solution?
Reverb. That’s right. After all my tweaking of EQ trying to find the right way to skew a track enough to make it unidentifiable, I discovered that getting around the filter was as easy as adding a little bit of reverb. I’m no audio expert, but I’m guessing the reason that it works so well is because adding a healthy amount of reverb seriously alters the digital footprint of the audio file. You can see how different a wav looks after reverb is applied. Basically there is just a bunch of sound data where there wasn’t before, creating a uniqe file. For the user, it just sounds like the song is being played in a large room (depending on the amount of reverb).
My software of choice, Sony Vegas, has this effect built in. I’d imagine that most video editing software packages probably have some sort of default reverb effect, as it is a pretty common one.
I have so far tested this on three different videos, all of which originally had their audio track disabled. All three have been successfully uploaded and are still live with the reverb-tweaked audio files still in tact.
In some cases, the new sound of the audio will actually complement the video. Personally, I think it sounds pretty cool. I haven’t yet determined the exact amount of reverb that needs to be applied to safely evade the filter, but it’s safe to say that the more you apply, the less chance you’ll have of having any problems.
I know this has been a very frustrating problem for many of you, so hopefully this will make your lives a bit easier! I don’t expect this method to work forever, but until it becomes obsolete, enjoy!
Final Note
In some cases, having your audio match third party content will not cause it to be removed, but rather YouTube will display advertisments on the video that will benefit the rightful copyright holder. This may or may not be a problem for you (the advertisement makes it difficult to use annotations as we’ve talked about here before).
Tags: third party content, YouTube
March 6th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Well, I just flagged a perfectly legitimate comment as spam by accident. That’s the second time I’ve done that. Hopefully you stop by here and find this response.
You asked what niches I found to be profitable aside from dating. To be honest, the vast majority of my YouTube marketing empire is based on dating offers.
YouTube users in general aren’t in “buy mode”, so it is pretty difficult to market physical products there. Not impossible, but certainly not as easy as pushing free sign-ups, such as dating offers.
Don’t forget, however, that YouTube videos can rank very well in Google’s organic search results. So there is definitely potential for marketing just about anything.
For now though, I plan to focus on dating, and I would advise anyone just starting out to do the same.
Thanks for the comment, and sorry again for deleting it. Flagging spam on this blog has become so routine that sometimes I do it mindlessly and mistakes happen.
March 9th, 2009 at 5:02 am
Excellent post. Watch out YouTube.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Good post. It’s not that hard to figure out what offers work on YT. Just look around at what others are promoting…this post, for example, has nothing to do with dating.
March 20th, 2009 at 6:22 am
I see videos with copywritten material all over youtube now-a-days. I wonder if they have removed this ban.
March 29th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Cool little trick…but how does it really sound? Is it worth modifying the audio?
April 6th, 2009 at 7:56 am
That’s really interesting and actually, I’ve always wondered why the quality of audio in so many videos is really poor – perhaps its others utilising this trick to get around the filters. I guess it just takes some experimentation as to how little reverb you need to keep the quality of the sound but get the upload to take.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
You could also try using some compression.
September 6th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
You Tube has corrected many of the issues that used to make the quality of videos very poor. I believe this is no longer an issue.
February 12th, 2010 at 11:22 am
How do you find having the u comment i follow badge on your website? do you find it leads to more interesting debate overall? I’m thinking of trying it on a few of my blogs but I’m not sure. On one side its a good way of attracting interest for articles and increasing the content on your website but on the other you could be inundated with moderating comments.
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:37 am
I was using Sony vegas too but other effect, don’t lika reverb.
August 13th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
You Tube is one of those site that works with they users and not against them like facebook does…
I know that You Tube had many problems in the beginning like bad streaming and poor video quality but I personally think that they have improve allot..
September 20th, 2010 at 3:24 am
Good post. Though i am very curious about the sound quality.
October 23rd, 2010 at 9:58 am
People should be sure to realize how they might be breaking YT’s TOS by circumventing filters.
March 16th, 2012 at 3:11 pm
black ops xbox live…
Traffic. The black spell which makes commuters forget they are for each other….