Rick Beato is Right to Rant About Music Copyright Strikes
Go Beato, go!
For 15+ years, Saving Country Music has been on the warpath against the completely ludicrous intellectual property regime that disallows even a small snippet of music to be featured in a podcast without draconious repercussions, including removing episodes, and deleting entire accounts, while not offering any reasonable alternative solutions to the issue.
On YouTube videos, creators can freely filch copyrighted photos and other people’s videos virtually free of ramifications. You can take an entire 2 1/2 hour film, impose it over a background, and upload it to YouTube, and usually avoid any problems. But feature a barely audible 8 1/2-second clip of music underneath audio dialogue, and you could have your entire podcast career evaporate overnight.
Music labels have been leaving major opportunities to promote their catalogs and performers on the table with their punitive copyright claims that make it impossible to feature music on music podcasts and other platforms. And instead of trying to build a system where perhaps there’s more reasonable revenue sharing or other opportunities for artists and songwriters through these podcast platforms to promote their music, it’s the punitive measures of record labels that eliminate these opportunities in lose/lose scenarios.
Music video podcaster Rick Beato with his massive 5 million-plus subscriber base finally got fed up with it, and posted a rant on Tuesday, August 19th about this, and, it’s a thing of beauty.
“I hate making these videos, but I really need to because it seems the only thing that ever gets done is when you talk about this stuff,” Beato starts off. But one of the nauseating things about this issue is that we’ve been talking about it for going on two decades, and still nothing is getting done about it. Saving Country Music posted about this issue in 2024, and in 2020, and as far back as 2010, with no real movement on the issue.
Luckily though, Rick Beato has a much bigger bullhorn, though he has brought up the issue before to no avail, though not in such a dedicated and forceful manner.
Beato’s specific beef is with Universal Music Group, who is the most notorious actor for bringing these heavy handed claims against song clip uses that clearly fall under the fair use clauses of American copyright law, let alone are being brought against a guy who operates a massive music platform that promotes artists. But since there’s rarely humans making any of these decisions and it’s automated by bots, they don’t understand these claims are against Universal Music’s best interests.
“I’m doing interviews with people and playing the music that they either wrote or recorded, or they produced,” Beato explains. “You need to play people music to talk about it. That is the definition of fair use. These are interviews with people about their careers. Why are these record labels wanting to take down content about artist that have records on their label? What sense does that make?”
“Give it a rest,” he continues. “My God. If I didn’t fight these three claims, my channel would get taken down with my 2,000 videos. Is that ridiculous? It’s ridiculous to me. And they’re for interviews.”
People continue to ask, “Why doesn’t Saving Country Music has a podcast?” Because what’s the point of having a music podcast when you can’t feature music? In fact, after over a decade of refusing to start one, I finally did, music free. What happened? About a dozen episodes in, someone took out a claim, and not only were all the episodes deleted, so was the entire account, even though no music even appeared on any of the episodes. I was given absolutely no recourse to fight whatever false claim had been made.
For the record, Saving Country Music’s Country History X podcast remains live. But it’s been difficult to pursue it, knowing it could summarily disappear at any moment. People have lost thousands of episodes and videos over this issue. Meanwhile, you can use extended song clips on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. It has become an excellent way to promote songs and artists. These networks facilitate this music sharing, and credit the artists for their work.
The music industry continues to so colossal fail the artists and catalogs they represent, and the fans they’re supposed to serve with this current system of how podcasts are handled. If everything changes today thanks to the Rick Beato rant, it would still be 15 years too late. But at least it would happen. The powers that be in the music industry need to recognize that the power base in media is moving to podcasting, and they need to make music available to podcasters in a way that’s fair to all parties.
In fact in some respects we’re moving backwards on this issue. A couple of years ago, Spotify did offer the ability for podcasters to embed full songs in episodes. But they’ve since discontinued that program.
Let’s do this. It’s well beyond the time to solve this problem. You aren’t screwing podcasters. You’re screwing artists who could be using podcasts to help promote their music. Hopefully Rick Beato’s rant finally reaches the right ears.
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August 20, 2025 @ 8:21 am
I’ve been drawn to Beatos program from the get go. Here’s a guy who gets it, music that is. Hes as much of a music nerd as any of us, he understands the obsession. What’s great about his approach, is that he breaks down the songs, gives you the technical aspects and then explains how these technical aspects make the song great. How for example, these little notes in the chorus, played so well, hook you in to the song. And he explains why it works so well. What’s going on with this weird chord progression? Why did the artist change keys mid- song? All these things musicians and music fanatics love to learn about. But how can Rick do this if he isn’t allowed to play the song? What threat does Beato represent to Universal Music Group? From a sane vantage point, if anything he’s turning attention to great art from great artists. You are most likely after watching a Beato video, going to search out the artists work via streaming. Or you might buy it on vinyl. Either way, it’s a net gain for the label. How they don’t get this is baffling. Clearly it is a problem.
August 20, 2025 @ 8:29 am
Beato has also addressed the irony of artists that block some of his videos when he’s promoting their music to a huge audience and talking about how great it is.
August 20, 2025 @ 9:39 am
Often it’s not the artist. It’s the labels. It’s bots. There is no human element in this process. That is the problem.
August 20, 2025 @ 9:49 am
There’s no human element because there aren’t enough humans with enough time to determine what’s a legit fair use vs. a blatant copyright violation with so many people and companies pulling and reposting music content every minute of every day on countless platforms.
“Exposure” for musicians doesn’t cut it anymore when online influencers are earning infinitely more money doing a goofy dance to your recording, than you ever will having actually made that recording. Unfortunately music is worthless fodder to most digital content creators and it’s very difficult to suss out the legit supporters form the opportunists and grifters.
August 20, 2025 @ 8:32 am
To be fair, this problem stems from a variety of issues including the sheer speed at which technology advances, big tech acting as middle man and gatekeeper, industry bureaucracy, and the imperfect and often futile ways in which music copyright owners have tried to wrestle back control of their property and maintain the value of their catalogues since the advent of Napster at the turn of the millennium – then YouTube, then Spotify, then TikTok, the list goes on.
Yes, Rick is correct in that his use of the music falls under “fair use” under US copyright statutes because he’s discussing and talking specifically about that music – but YouTube’s copyright violation prevention and monetization algorithms don’t know that.
I guarantee you that BMG just opted into YouTube’s strictest copyright protections and Rick’s just getting automated take-down notices because he himself monetizes his own channel. To my knowledge, anybody can post copyrighted materials to YouTube without getting penalized, but only if they don’t monetize that video – otherwise, royalties go straight to the original copyright owners of the content posted in the videos.
This is the imperfect solution YouTube and the copyright owners (record labels, publishers, etc.) seem to have agreed to. Maybe they’ve already tried, but Rick’s lawyer (or anybody on his production team) could petition BMG to “whitelist” his channel – but this may actually need to be done on a case-by-case basis on the track level. Again, imperfect solutions to very real problems that almost cratered the music business when their content essentially became “free” overnight a couple decades ago.
August 20, 2025 @ 8:40 am
Beato’s channel is great. On one side you have the social media short-form brain rot content of people doing a stupid dance to a song, and on the complete other side – where Rick Beato is. He breaks down why songs are good and why some are bad and it’s always from the standpoint of appreciating music. The overbearing copyright enforcement directly hurts content like this that is introducing music, new and old, in a constructive and informative way to people. It’s even worse when it’s corporations making these copyright claim, not the artists themselves. (Don Henley is an exception…that bastard goes out of his way and has his own team to take down content)
August 20, 2025 @ 8:49 am
I saw his video yesterday evening. I like how he pointed out he made $37 from the video in question. This has to be so frustrating. I’ve also heard of artists getting flagged for their own music on social media (independent artists I think?). Another post yesterday on social media covered a Radio Update report and how the top 10 on country radio is made up of all dudes who haven’t released music in a year (and how there is a huge lag/disconnect in what is currently popular and what’s on the top 10 radio chart). I’ve also recently seen an artist on social media calling attention to the financial breakdown of everything, which was eye opening. Having seen this kind of content over the past few weeks, it’s been pretty discouraging. The system seems beyond broken. I’m having a hard time understanding where money comes from and where it goes these days (and why). All this combined with how artists are having to be content creators more so than artists – it’s beyond depressing. There has to be a better way to do all this. Lately I’ve seen some artists stepping away from social media completely. I don’t blame them. YouTube is what I primarily watch (Beato is one in the mix). I can’t imagine having a YouTube channel with over 2,000 videos/content and have it be in jeopardy of being wiped out over an interview with the artist themself, playing their song, with $37 in “revenue” from that video. Glad he has a lawyer, but what a colossal waste of time.
August 20, 2025 @ 9:31 am
So does this mean that podcasts that do include music clips are either paying for use or are only using clips from more permissive labels or that they are flying under the radar or what? For instance Cocaine and Rhinestones and Song Exploder.
August 20, 2025 @ 9:36 am
Certain bands are quick with the copyright strikes like The Beatles, Eagles, Jimi Hendrix.
August 20, 2025 @ 9:47 am
As someone who makes podcasts for a living, and produces content that constantly requires an answer to the question, “can we use this?” it is absolutely INFURIATING to me, to pick up my phone, open up instagram and tiktok, and literally watch and listen the endless re-purposing of content and music. Its absolutely infuriating.
August 20, 2025 @ 10:05 am
How are you using the music in the podcast? Are you talking about the music itself, or is the music adding value to your podcast outside the context of examination and criticism?
If it’s the latter, well, if you earn a living from the podcast then the creators/owners of that music need to earn their share too. That’s how commerce works. Music isn’t free fodder, and “exposure” doesn’t cut it anymore. Music itself has value, however intangible – the only reason it seems like it doesn’t is because technology has destroyed almost every barrier for access, copying, and redistribution.
You mention Instagram and and TikTok, but copyright owners and distributors have successfully established blanket agreements with those platforms so content creators and copyright owners can share in the revenue. To my knowledge, there’s no uniform way for podcasters to do this. It sucks, but that’s the current reality of it.
August 20, 2025 @ 10:09 am
I run a YouTube channel featuring videos my dad filmed of Bluegrass bands performing live at festivals in the 1980s and 1990s. I have hundreds of videos uploaded and over half a million views. Ive been building this channel for 10 years. My channel is not monetized, however if the video has copyrighted material YouTube adds adverts to the videos. I’ve known all along that at any moment it can all vaporize. I keep all my edited videos on an external hard drive just in case. Recently a similar style of channel featuring rare bluegrass 45 and 78rpm songs received 3 copyright strikes from the same copyright holder on the same fay and the channel vaporized. It’s unfortunate as a lot of international listeners could only access those rare tunes through that specific channel. It’s a mess out there.
August 20, 2025 @ 10:25 am
I’ve been a fan of Rick’s for years, and in my opinion the main point he (and by extension SCM) are making is one of the music industry as a whole not seeing the forest for the trees. Look at the Grateful Dead. They not only allowed the fans to record their shows, but actively encouraged it. In turn, they cemented a legacy that is winning fans even today. By fostering goodwill towards their fan base, they created a community that collects and shares shows from decades ago.
I get it. It’s your music to do with what you want and how you want and let the market decide how it fares. But the short-sightedness of this latest rash of copyright strikes reminds me of the advent of Napster and the rush to stop it. Instead of embracing it and allowing creators to keep your name and music in the conversation, using strikes in this manner has a chilling effect on criticism and creativity.
In the end, it’s short-term gains at the expense of long-term fame.