are videos copy written and royalties claimed on old music like Beethovens?
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The music itself is in the public domain, but any media related to that is copyrighted for as long as the jurisdiction determines. So orchestras pay for the sheet music they play from, and the recording they make is usually copyrighted too.
The exception to this is any work recorded by a federal institution in the USA. I once used a recording I had bought of Holst’s Jupiter in a memorial video for my late uncle. YouTube refused to let me upload it (DRM built in, somehow), but I found a public domain recording by the US Navy orchestra.
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