YouTube adding copyright protection feature to prevent content stealing

In order to combat instances of content stealing through unauthorized uploads, YouTube has added a feature to the site to make it easier for creators to take down exact copies of their content.

In the social media content-creation world, it’s unfortunately common to see people reuploading creators’ videos in their entirety to the same platform in the hopes of scoring a lot of views, or even money — and YouTube is definitely no exception to this.

On their website, YouTube makes it clear that they operate under the ‘Fair Use’ law, stating: “Fair use is a US law that allows the reuse of copyright-protected material under certain circumstances without getting permission from the copyright owner.”

They explain that in countries like the UK, these circumstances can include review, quotation, parody, and more.

Now the site has revealed that they’ve implemented a new feature that will allow content creators to more easily identify and take down videos that don’t fall under fair use and that are exact duplicates of their content.

Ryan ‘Fwiz’ Watt explained via Twitter that at the request of creators they have added this new feature that targets unauthorized uploads, and adds that they plan to “expand access to the Copyright Match Tool” over the coming months.

When a creator submits a takedown request, they’ll be given the option to “prevent copies of these videos from appearing on YouTube going forward.”

https://twitter.com/Fwiz/status/1405649710682042371

Once that option is selected, any copies of the same video that are identified will be automatically removed before they are even uploaded.

While the Copyright Match Tool was previously only available to those in the YouTube Partner Program, they say they will soon be expanding the tool to “any creator that issues a valid takedown request.”

Although many are glad to see the new feature that will help tackle the growing issue of unauthorized uploads on YouTube, some have expressed their concerns over how the tool will impact gaming and commentary creators.

How successful the feature will be remains to be seen, but if it’s effective, it will certainly come as a relief to many content creators on YouTube.