So, you’ve got a copyright claim. First things first — don’t panic. These are almost always straightforward to sort out, and you’ve landed in exactly the right place. Most claims are resolved within a working day. Feed your details into my magnificent diagnostic instrument below and it’ll point you firmly in the right direction.
YouTube’s Content ID system is automated, and automated systems make automated mistakes. The three most common causes:
Missing or misspelled attribution — the system scans video descriptions for specific text. A typo, or credits placed in the video itself rather than the description, is enough to trigger a claim. Annoying, but fixable in minutes.
Third-party theft — bad actors occasionally steal Creative Commons music, register it under their own name, and collect revenue from people who licensed it legitimately. It’s infuriating. It happens. It’s also something I can intervene on directly, which platform libraries cannot.
Overzealous automation — Content ID errs on the side of flagging first and asking questions later. Sometimes music just gets caught in the net despite everything being in order.
All of these are fixable. None of them are your fault.
If you're on the free Creative Commons licence, credits need to be in the video description — not just the title, not just the video itself. The format to use:
Music: [Track Title] by Shane Ivers – https://silvermansound.com
Once credits are in place, submit the form and I'll get it released. If the credit was added after the claim was made — which is common — the form is still the right first step.
Claims are typically released within one working day. Nice cold pint optional but encouraged.
The Smart Content ID system looks specifically for “Shane Ivers”, “silvermansound.com”, or “@SilvermanSound” in your description. Any one of those works.
You should never be receiving claims in the first place. If one lands anyway, contact me directly with your channel link and licence details and I’ll add you to the whitelist immediately. Usually sorted within two working days, with zero need to add credits.
A legitimate claim through my distributor will appear as:
We Are Era Music BV, claimed on behalf of Shane Ivers.
If it says something different, it may be a third-party attempting to claim music they don’t own. Contact me directly and I’ll look into it — that’s exactly the kind of thing I can intervene on.
You can, but adding correct credits and using the release form is faster. The Smart Content ID system releases claims automatically once it detects proper attribution — often within 24 hours.
For years, shady third parties were registering my Creative Commons music under their own names and filing claims against people using it legitimately. It became too widespread to ignore. So I partnered with Frequency Music to implement Smart Content ID across the catalogue — a system that scans for proper attribution and releases claims automatically when it finds it, while blocking the random internet cretins from claiming music that isn’t theirs.
The result: legitimate users are protected, bad actors are blocked, and claims that do arise are resolved quickly with a real human on the other end. Which is how it should have worked from the start.
Contact me directly — include a link to the content, the name of the track, and whether you’re on the free or Pro licence. I’ll take it from there.
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