Several factors determine what we can collect.
YouTube can only pay out royalties if a video has been claimed by an advertisement (monetized). If it hasn’t been monetized before, there are simply no retroactive royalties to share.
If the sound recording owner has already claimed a video — when no one else was claiming its composition share — we would be able to receive an adjustment payment for royalties earned from the previous claim.
Other situations affect whether we can collect retroactively on YouTube, including whether a clip had different content owners in the past or conflicting owners currently. If you have a question about a specific video, feel free to share its link using the Songtrust support form.
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