VideoHerd
A YouTuber's Guide to Understanding Copyright
Category: YouTube Content Strategy
Creator content clashes, copyright claims, and cease and desist letters are common among large and small YouTube accounts fighting over who’s copyrighted content is whos. But what exactly is going on here? And how can you avoid copyright entanglements that could leave your account in jeopardy?
In this post we’re going to break down your content’s rights, how they’re managed, and what copyright infringement looks like on the platform so you can play nice in the copyright ball-pen and keep YouTube happy.
Please note we are not legal experts and this isn’t legal advice. Now, with that out of the way, let’s dig into it.
A Brief Note on Copyright Law on YouTube
YouTube’s copyright policy stems from the Copyright Law of the United States. To save you the trip down legalese hell, Copyright Law protects:
‘Original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression, which includes digital media’. Digital Media can be anything from YouTube videos to even the sound effects that you include inside.
Copyright in general, means that if you, and you only, (no third party commissions, or content created for your employer) create a piece of content, you have the exclusive rights to ‘reproduce, distribute, perform, display, or license the work’. You also have the right to produce or allow the production of derivative works as well, which can often happen in the YouTube world ie. reaction videos. Your Copyright protection lasts the life of you as the author plus 70 years. These protections were created to secure your creative works from theft!
But, as we can see on YouTube, Copyright can be infringed upon very easily and oftentimes, unknowingly.
So, before you add other people’s content in your video productions, please note that they are protected under Copyright law doing so could run you the risk of becoming a Copyright-Infringer which could lead you to violate YouTube’s policies. And here is where the trouble begins.
What is Copyright infringement on YouTube?
If we check out YouTube’s Copyright policy page, we can see that Copyright Infringement starts when a creator uploads entirely someone else’s content or uses snippets of other people’s content in their videos that are outside of what counts as Fair Use or without permission of the content owner. We will explore Fair Use later in this article.
On YouTube and in Copyright Law, ‘content’ is a wide-reaching term. You could get in trouble when using many different media formats without permission such as:
Music tracks that you don’t have permission to use
Popular sound effects or viral audio or video snippets
Videos from other YouTube creators
Snippets from Movies, TV programs, YouTube videos, commercials, or podcasts
As you can see, when creating YouTube videos in today's era, it can get tricky to make a popular video without using viral memes, sound effects, and videos that are circulating the web. Not to worry, there is still a few exceptions to this rule. Firstly you can work hard to become a killer YouTube creator by increasing your storytelling compelling content with storytelling here. And secondly, you can get away with using copyrighted content on YouTube if it lies within what’s called Fair Use.
What is Fair Use?
Fair Use is a common copyright exception that allows you to use some copyrighted material on YouTube for your videos in specific circumstances without permission. What counts as Fair Use differs from country to country, however in the European Union, North America, and Australia, there is a semi-common understanding that you can use snippets of copyrighted content as long as it falls within: “general quotation, and quotation for the purposes of criticism, review or news reporting), caricature, parody and pastiche”.
Fair Use is used as a way to protect freedom of expression in various jurisdictions. However, at the end of the day, if you are accused of Copyright Infringement, it’s up to the court to decide your fate!
How YouTube helps Manage your Content’s Rights
Okay, to be fair, it might not actually end up with you in front of a judge, sweating, and justifying your use of someone else’s content. Nor will the FBI raid your house. Luckily, instead of having law enforcement deal with content disputes, YouTube has its own tools to help creators take down infringing content. There are three options which YouTube offers that can help you. Let’s look at them from the perspective of if you’ve found your content being infringed on:
DMCA Takedown form
If you find an odd unauthorized video copy of yours floating around YouTube, you can use YouTube's DMCA webform for a quick copyright notification. It’s simple, accessible, and quickly walks you through the steps to help you take down content that’s yours or allow you to collect money from it.
Content ID & Copyright Match
If you have a history of submitting numerous content claims, consider using YouTube’s Content ID and Copyright Matching tools. With Content ID you can tap into YouTube's Copyright Match Tool as it sniffs out re-uploads of your original videos and lets you decide the next step - message the uploader, request removal, or archive the match.
If you have a heap of content you want to stop people from using, YouTube's Content ID will also help you sniff out your copyrighted content used in unauthorized videos across the platform. Content ID compares every new upload to its database of exclusive content. If there's a match, you choose the action: block, monetize, or track views. As previously messaged you can monetize by running ads on the video which allows you to ditch the need for takedown requests. Please note, that Content ID’s don't result in the offending channel receiving a strike.
What Happens if You Get a Copyright Strike or Content ID Claim?
There are many steps to take if you yourself become underfire of a Copyright strike or a Content ID Claim. To keep things brief in this article we will outline the basics of the steps you can take when this happens to your channel. Stay tuned to our blog for when we go deeper into this.
Addressing a Copyright Strike:
Wait It Out: Copyright strikes expire after 90 days. If it's your first strike, you'll need to wait 90 days for it to be expunged from your record and you must also complete Copyright School which is created to help creators understand Copyright on the platform.
Go for the Retraction: You can attempt to get in touch with the person who claimed your video and ask them to retract their claim of copyright infringement. How you want to go about this is up to you. However, it can be hit or miss depending on who you’re dealing with.
Send a Counter Notification: If you think you've been striked or had a video removed by mistake, or you believe it truly qualifies as fair use, you can submit a counter notification which allows you to state your case against the Striker. Make sure to have your evidence and proof at the ready as you will be asked to provide reasons on why you believe it’s wrong.
Addressing Content ID Claims:
Review the Claim: First check your dashboard to see the details of the claim and where in your video it takes place. From here, you can better determine the best next step to take.
Take the Easy Way Out: On some occasions you can remove a claim by trimming out claimed content and re-saving your video. This also works with music too. You can either mute the song which was content ID’d or trim it out completely to relieve yourself of a Content ID strike.
Dispute the Content ID claim: If you believe the content ID Claim is not correct, you can dispute it. This is an intricate process and we would recommend you read up on it before doing so. Here is a 100-foot-view of how it works from YouTubes’s help documents. We’ll be taking a deeper dive on this later so stay tuned to see how you can claim back your content through Content ID appeals.
How to make content that people want to steal!
If you’re reading this, you now know the basics about the YouTube Copyright game. However, don’t flatter yourself yet. Learning about Copyright is the easy part. Creating content that people want to copy is the hard part.
Afterall, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If you’re looking to learn how to create videos that people actually want to steal and re-use, we can help you. Send us a message here and we can get you on the road to creating killer content for your channel.
