It absolutely gets confusing, if only for the misnomer "publisher" between game and music industries. On the distribution (sound recording) side, many fingerprinting services will allow video game music to be submitted, or require monetization to be disabled.

We're calling this the Indie Video Game Music exception: larger rightsholders of franchises remain unaffected, in part due to nonparticipation in music industry defaults. Who is affected are independent composers who retain their rights. Platforms do not allow them to get paid.

ok, I appreciate this, but this is vague & indirect. Are you trying to say, "Indie game devs cannot publish to content ID even though they are the game publisher of their works, in contradiction to YouTube's stated rules?" That would be clear, direct. but there is an issue:

1) if true, then how would anyone get a content ID claim for UT and DR, and why would you take responsibility for such? (e.g., why wouldn't your FAQ say, "it's not us claiming, because *we cannot*") 2) given that you do have claims, that doesn't explain why no revshare

Nice questions. It's a generalization, so how about "Indie composers who retained the copyrights to their sound recording and music publishing copyrights CANNOT deliver their soundtracks to Content ID via an MCN or distributor and WILL NOT get paid by YouTube."

yes, but this current kerfluffle is caused by a very *specific* situation of someone who wears multiple hats -- someone who wears both the composer AND publisher hat. I get that most indie composers are not wunderkinder who "do it all" but that's not what's happening *here*

Ahh that is precisely what is happening here! An indie composer who creates their own soundtrack wears the hats of: - Producer - Recording artist - Composer/Songwriter - Publisher/Administrator - Record label There are distinct royalties, and responsibilities, for each.

yeah yeah i get it, this is the ideological point. we are already on the same side there: bad youtube has said, "Only those who wear Video game publisher hat can get $$$" But this *does* apply to toby fox. so why no revshare for using the *composition* in a cover on YT?

You're right - it's absolutely an imperfect system, with not enough parties to advocate for gamemusic rights. Most other companies in the rights admin/fingerprinting space stay far away from publishing administrator... understandably. We're still hopeful for competition.

competition would be great, but you *are* still *our* advocate too! If you -- with the background to know about composers, publishing AND cover musicians -- can't (won't?) fight for revshare for covers ALONG WITH indie composers to be represented in content ID, we are lost.