Can I use popular songs in YouTube Shorts?

When you create a Short in the YouTube app, you can add a sound from YouTube's library, which includes many popular songs licensed for use in Shorts. Using that picker is the intended route: the music is cleared for the Shorts feed, and the original song is credited and linked. Some tracks can only be used for part of the Short, and availability varies by country and over time, so a song available to one creator may not appear for another.

Problems start when a song is added in CapCut or another editor and the finished file is uploaded. YouTube's Content ID can still recognise the song, and depending on the rights holder's settings the Short may be claimed, muted in places, or blocked, and Shorts over a minute with an active claim can be blocked outright. A claim also affects whether the Short can share in Shorts revenue. Sampling another creator's Short through YouTube's remix tools is allowed within those tools, but downloading and re-uploading it is not.

For a business, popular music has another drawback: it can compete with or replace the message. A Short with a trending song and no voice tells a viewer little about what you sell or where you are. Trending audio can help reach, but it works best quietly under an explanation, or on Shorts made purely for entertainment. Keep a small set of library tracks you like, use them consistently, and let your own voice carry the content.