YouTube Announces Copyright Match Tool To Help Creators Protect Their Content

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YouTube has announced a new Copyright Match Tool that will help creators on its platform find out if others have re-uploaded their content on other channels.

It’s very frustrating for content creators when their content is uploaded to other channels without their permission, as it’s very time-consuming to search for re-uploads across YouTube manually. To make it easier for them, YouTube has announced that after testing its new Copyright Match Tool for the past year it will now start rolling out to creators who have more than 100,000 subscribers.

After monitoring usage over the next few months, it plans to roll out to all creators on its YouTube Partner program soon.

YouTube creators already have “a number of ways to protect their copyright” on the platform but its new Copyright Match Tool ‘is designed to find re-uploads of content on other channels.’

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In a blog post last week, Product manager at YouTube Fabio Magagna explained that creators already have “a number of ways to protect their copyright” on the platform but that YouTube is doing more to help them, saying that the new tool “is designed to find re-uploads of your content on other channels.”

“After you upload a video, YouTube will scan other videos uploaded to YouTube to see if any of them are the same or very similar” he explains. “When there is a match, it will appear in the ‘matches’ tab in the tool, and you can decide what to do next.”

To use the tool effectively, creators need to remember a few things:

It’s important that they are the first person to upload a specific video to YouTube. The time of upload is how YouTube determine who should be shown matches.
The tool is intended to find full re-uploads only. Clips of content can be reported through YouTube’s copyright webform.
Once the Copyright Match Tool finds a match, creators you can choose to do nothing, to get in touch with the other creator, or request that YouTube removes the video. When a creator requests removal of a video, they can do so with or without a 7-day delay. This will allow the uploader to correct the issue first. All takedown requests “will be reviewed to make sure they comply with YouTube’s copyright policies.”
Before taking action, creators need to “carefully evaluate each match” to make sure they actually own the rights to the matched content ensuring that “it infringes on [their] copyright.” Creators should not file copyright takedown requests for content that they do not own exclusively. This could include public domain content, for example. Finally, creators should consider “whether the matched content could be considered fair use or could be subject to some other exceptions to copyright and hence not require permission for reuse.”

YouTube’s new Copyright Match Tool is not Content ID; however, it uses ‘similar matching technology.’

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The new Copyright Match Tool is not Content ID; however, it uses “similar matching technology.” Magagna explains that it is “a unique tool designed especially for YouTube creators who have problems with unauthorized re-uploads.”