Tbh, this is a giant grey area. There are even situations where with a sync and mec license, you won't be allowed to post an original with you singing over it anyway.
I discussed this with the copyright fellas from youtube and they stay vague to a certain matter as well.
There are tons of lads that post youtubes of themselves, playing saxophone, over an original or cover of a song. Which both, are ilegal, without the right permissions and licensing. I've asked youtube if that was allowed, and they actually don't answer that exact question. They tell you that they might be allowed to by the original owner. Which, in some cases is almost impossible with 3 different owners and one being a major record company.
Like this dude:
Also, tons of these lads out there that do the same. Most of em have no permission or license. As far as I've deducted. It's impossible to get it all licensed if you upload several a week and have little views. Justin is popular and get's enough views, but there's a ton of ppl out there that get almost no views and still post tons.
I asked because I want to do the same.
He plays the original track himself on the piano, puts some other stuff to it so it resembles the original. Still not alowed officially.
If you look at the info, he names the original artist, also no guarantee that it then is allowed.
With people not wanting to answer and give the exact information, it comes down to a lot of things.
What it all comes down to:
- You can ask for the correct licensing and permissions. Big chance a lot of the owners of the songs you want to cover don't react.
- You can correctly name original artist in your video info part.
- You can hope for the best and accept the risks. There's a chance the original owner never finds out, there's a chance no one will report your youtube, there's a good chance the original owner will just let you go your way with what your doing as your not posing any threat to their piece of commerce and only helping it in getting their music out there. You do risk getting your youtube taken down and even risk getting your youtube channel disabled. Something that seems a last resort, as you can see with how many of these youtube channels exist that do the exact same and have uploaded tons of those cover youtubes. Charlez even has the exact original track playing at some of his covers.
Here you can clearly hear that beyonce is still singing the original and that it's not a cover that he's singing over
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK6I54R4wtA (be prepared to listen to a major crap recording, and slightly better play (hard to hear with this crappy recording))
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC55tP-RnBu2I31VtVCJW8EQ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS-esHKH6wsgxZyg2nsndMg
Those pants, lol!
Two examples of youtube channels that do the same. There's tons of em, with a lot of em being crappy at what they do.
Anyway, that's how far I got with getting information.
So far, what I'm gonna do, is the exact same as those fellas (naming original artist, no commercial banners or "purposes" (purposes being bs because these lads definitely want to use this to get themselves out there)). Just forget about getting the correct licenses and you'll notice when you get a warning. Big chance that you won't get one if you're doing the exact same as those guys.
There are some things that could help. Naming the original artist, not having commercial profit from banners on your youtube channel and stating that.
This is what I were able to find out. If any of you has different information or know for sure on how these guys go about putting those youtubes online, let us know.
Which, I think, kind of confirms to me the fact that they're operating a part in a grey area.
Hope i editted out all the contradictions