thanks for replying to my question, chaps!

First of all, Sammy, I am real, just like Bigfoot!

I did register a new log in though, as I want this question to be anonymous.

I know that there have been discussions on this before, but the answers that I have read are contradictory.

I have put my latest album on CDBaby and gone for pro-publishing. On the page ‘opt in for monetization options’, there is a button for ‘collect youtube money – earn revenue from your music on YouTube’. Under a disclaimer, it says: “NOTE: you CANNOT monetize music that use royalty-free samples or blanket licenses (e.g. GarageBand loops, free samples, etc.) on YouTube.” (It also has a video tutorial.)

I contacted cdbaby and they confirmed that they thought that this meant I could NEVER monetize my music on YouTube (which is written, performed and produced entirely by myself with a few guest performers and some BIAB real tracks, no other samples or unacknowledged writers – 2 tracks are co-writes). For this reason it has put me off using BIAB for released tracks, which is a shame as I think it is brilliant.

When I say the post on an ad from a publisher on Songlink, I thought, here we go, I can’t ever send my tracks off to publishers as backing tracks which is also a drawback.
I would love to be able to monetize my music, or to not feel that I have ‘cheated’ somehow.
Cdbaby has put all of the tracks on youtube themselves anyway (but with no monetization of course.)
This is my confusion. Any other experiences from anyone please?

(I will look up the links you have sent me everyone, thanks.)