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Understanding YouTube Copyright Infringement Posting videos on YouTube can be a great way to show off your video editing skills, post video blogs, or even your own mini series. Because YouTube is the largest video sharing site it’s also a great way to promote products, or your website to thousands new potential viewers. But what happens when you post a video and it’s either slapped with a copyright infringement or banned all together, and what are the consequences to your account?
YouTube defines copyright infringement as the following
“What is copyright infringement? Copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner.”
What that means is say for example you create a video and you decide to add some audio, let’s say Metallica for example. Unless you have permission from the record label and you post the video, you will probably get a copyright infringement notice on your account. This also applies to any video or picture file (though I personally never have had any problems with pictures).
It doesn’t matter the source for that audio or video either. Even if you buy a DVD and upload the video directly from that source it’s still considered copyright infringement due to the fact that you don’t own the content that’s on that DVD, you just own the disc and the money that you paid for it simply allows you to view the material on it.
What happens when your video is found to have copyrighted material?
If your video is noticed by YouTube as having copyrighted material on it a few things will happen. In all cases though you will either get a notice on your account or by email telling you what’s going on.
Matched to third part content
This means that your video has material that’s matched to a third party source such as a record label like Warner Chappell for example. In situations like these you don’t need to change anything because the video will still be available worldwide. What this does mean though is that ads will be placed on your video (these pop up at the bottom of the video screen) these ads when clicked generate revenue for the third party source and not for you if you have an ad sense account listed on YouTube.
Blocked in some countries
Like matched to third party content your video will still be available on Youtube. The difference is that due to different international copyright laws some countries will ban your video from being played there.
It’s important to remember with these two that the rules change all the time and what was banned in one country one day may be allowed the next, or what was public might all of a sudden be matched to third party content due to changes in copyright rules.
Rejected Content/Banned
When it comes to rejected content this one is more vague. I recently had two videos rejected. One a tribute video I did to Children of Men was banned worldwide, and I had to upload it to another video sharing site. The other was to the movie Zombie Strippers ,due to inappropriate content.(Which is kinda funny considering my tribute video contains no nudity yet you can watch the entire original movie on YouTube) This can be extremely frustrating to deal with since a simple search on YouTube will reveal all sorts of questionable content, nudity, porn, real violence on others, hate, or other questionable content and your video isn’t any different then the other videos you’ve posted before.
All these things above can result in your account being flagged, your videos removed from YouTube or your account banned all together. Unless you've been able to partner with YouTube, they can pretty much dictate what is allowed, and what gets banned. There is something though called “Fair Use”
YouTube defines fair use as:
“It's possible that you may be permitted to include small excerpts from copyrighted material in your video if what you intend to use is insubstantial or is incidentally included, or where the intended use you have for the copyrighted material falls within a exception or limitation to copyright under the law in your country.”
Again this depends on the country you live in and their copyright and internet laws. Unfortunately at this time there is no defined answer as to what is allowed, how much is allowed, and what isn’t. It’s a major grey area with some videos being allowed on one channel, and similar videos on another being banned completely. As for getting an explanation from YouTube you’re going to find yourself running in circles and not getting any clear answers, either from their forum or their help pages.
Does this mean you should stop posting videos on YouTube, of course not, just be aware that your videos could be banned or have a copyright infringement slapped on them and no clear explanation given. For more information regarding copyright click here
