YouTube Adds Artist, Songwriter Credits To 500M Videos

YouTube has added "music in this video" artist, songwriter and publishers credits to more than half a billion videos.  In addition to official music videos, the credits are being added to user generated content and virtually any YouTube video that uses recorded music.

Starting today, YouTube users can click “Show more” within more than a half billion videos that contain music, and see more detail about the artist, songwriters,  label and publisher. There are also links to the Official Artist Channel and official music video when available.

This addition comes as YouTube preps a new music subscription service, along with other changes designed to make it a more music and artist friendly platform. 

“Music in this video” draws from the the data and technology behind YouTube's Content ID, which allows copyright owners to identify and manage their content on YouTube.  But a sampling appeared to show that only videos that use recorded music added songwriter lyrics added.  User generated videos featuring live music did not offer the new feature, even though some  sampled had almost certainly been identified by the publishers or label.

We've reached out YouTube for clarification.