Users will be able to remix music videos in their short-form videos, called Shorts, as YouTube continues to compete with TikTok. Considering YouTube has a huge library of official music videos, which TikTok does not, it makes sense to leverage it for its short-form video ambitions.
YouTube is introducing new tools to make it easy to add music video clips or sounds to your Short videos. There are four main ways to do this:
- Collab tool: Play a music video right alongside your Short video so people can see you dancing to the music.
- Green screen tool: Use a music video as the background for your Short, like for reaction videos.
- Cut tool: Take a short 5-second clip from a music video and add it to your Short.
- Sound tool: Use just the audio from a music video in your Short without the video part.
To try it, find the music video you want and click “Remix”. Not all videos can be remixed since artists can block it.
The post says this is useful because on YouTube you can watch the full music video, see other fan videos using the same song, and discover new music to remix yourself. This brings the music video experience together in one place, unlike other apps.
YouTube Shorts keeps growing, hitting 70 billion daily views a few months ago compared to 50 billion in February 2023. While this growth is good, Shorts still has fewer daily views than Reels which gets 140 billion across Facebook and Instagram. Shorts also trail behind the hugely popular TikTok.
But by letting users remix official music videos, YouTube Shorts gains an advantage its competitors lack. This could help it close the gap.
