Hails. I posted here about this topic 2 years ago now, asking about my YouTube channel, vocal covers, and copyright/trademark/what have you issues. Back then, my channel consisted of me giving a tutorial about a song and the vocal style used and then me covering the song, just singing through a guitar amp in my house and the amp wasn't turned up very loud, I just wanted to have the microphone just because I am used to holding one when singing. It was essentially just "raw voice" though. I have since revamped my channel a bit, so I now need to ask this.

I made a CD (or MP3s) of me covering various songs to showcase my vocal ability. Songs from Cannibal Corpse, Marduk, Deicide, Morbid Angel, Dark Funeral, The Crown, At the Gates, Soilent Green, Napalm Death and many others. It is obviously an audio recording, with only reverb added to my voice and some double/triple tracking here and there. Before each track, I say the name of the song and the band that does it and then proceed to play the song turned up loud while I sing over it. I have been doing extreme metal vocals for 16 years, have sung in some local bands over the years, made some demos, but they weren't to my satisfaction mix wise so I choose not to put them up. Plus, my old bands are currently not together anyway, though I do have a new project but it will be a while before we have any recordings as we are just getting started. I like the "covers album" and it showcases my range vocally for people to see what I sound like and for possible fellow musicians to take interest.

However, these are audio recordings. The song is playing in the background (though turned up really loud) while I sing over it. I already have 3 videos that have been flagged as "matched party content" ever since I took my old videos down (I took them down and uploaded the audio tracks because they sound better than me singing the song out loud in my house and plus, those videos were grainy and stuff anyway). I clicked on them and it simply said "the owner is allowing their content to be used on their site, though adds may appear on it." That is fine with me, because I am not doing this to make money, I am just doing this in case someone wants to know what I sound like vocally, I have a direction to point them in and they can access YouTube right then and there on their phone and such. It will be a little bit before my new project is up and running, but I want to remain active vocally and not just sit on anything. This is my way of doing so.

My concern is: is there any danger in doing what I am doing in the sense of lawsuits, fines, and all that? If the worst case scenario is "YouTube will delete or ban your account" and that is all that happens then so be it, I'm not exactly worried about that. But I don't want litigious people getting all.....litigious. I realize that they are thousands and maybe, thousands more after that, videos of people doing exactly what I am doing, so I thought it was fine, as there was some disclaimer I read that said "if you see other videos like this on YouTube" you can upload it, though I know that alone still wouldn't make it "right" or whatever. I also plan on having tutorial videos and all that to show how I do these kinds of vocals.

Anyhow, since I know some who post here likely have cover songs posted with the song playing in the background and stuff, I'd like to hear your experience or advice. Right now, these covers are the best way to get my name out there and show folks that I am a vocalist and let them here what I can do and what I am capable of. The link to my page is below (shameless plug) if anyone is interested. I will be uploading more as well.

With youtube flooded with entire currently selling CD/ albums and songs, and sooo many other people doing the same thing as you.. seems to me that you would be lost in the deluge of other stuff out there.

I think even back 2 years ago when you asked... no one is going to care.

I pretty much thought so. Will leave them up and put more up that I haven't done yet. Thanks for the responses.

You are welcome.

Could someone sue you? Yes.
Will someone sue you? 99% sure it's a no.