If you're watching this episode, you've probably gotten a copyright claim
on your channel. What can you do about it. Is it a big deal? Should you worry
about it? How can you get them removed? We're going to answer all that in this
episode.
-I'm here with Nate today to talk about how to avoid a copyright claim on YouTube.
And avoiding it is... You know, it's important obviously but I also want to know why
certain videos get hit with a copyright claim, what to do about it if they do get hit and
also what are some legal ways that you can use copyrighted material on YouTube. So, Nate,
how do you avoid copyright claims? -Well, the easiest way is really to not use anybody else's
content or material, no video clips, no music or anything like that that belongs to other people.
You're naturally not going to have any anything to have a claim against. -Okay. Yeah. So, I like
I get that. But I mean, you see so many episodes that have even just like you know a little like
video clip pops up in the corner, you know, of like Kevin Mcallister from Home Alone going,
"aaahh" for a second. So, you see those types of things on YouTube channels on videos. So,
why do some videos get hit with a copyright claim while others don't get hit? -Well,
first of all, let's talk about copyright claims are not necessarily bad. A strike. So,
there's a difference between a claim and a strike. And we can talk about that. And then we can talk
about like why some channels can get away with it and not get either, not get a claim or a strike,
okay? So, a claim just means that somebody else out there is saying, "You know what? That's
my content." Or there are automatic algorithms that will see, "Okay, this content is in multiple
places on YouTube." So, a copyright claim will automatically appear on your video. And that's
okay. That's okay that you have a copyright claim because you can dispute it. You can say "Actually,
I have permission to use this or so forth". If you get a strike, it's a 3-strikes-you're-out
system where youtube can freeze or shut down your channel. So, if you ever get a strike,
you want to pay close attention and you got to make changes on your channel if you don't want to
risk that. And that's conversations that you'll need to have with YouTube. And if you have a
strike, how to get that removed so that you can be on... So, that you can be in the clear for that.
-So, once you have it... So, 3 strikes, you're out. But once you have one strike, it is possible
to get that kind of removed from your record so to speak? Like you have to do a safe drivers course
or something like that? -Probably. I've never been through that process so you'd have if you
have a strike, you'd want to google, "How do I get rid of a YouTube strike or contact YouTube
themselves." -Okay, good. I'm glad you added that. But how... So, then how do you use... You know,
I want Kevin Mcallister when I start a channel like that's going to be my theme every episode,
we'll have Kevin Mcallister going, "Aaah!". No, I'm good. But but I want to use stuff like that.
You know, how do I legally use that? -So, YouTube has a "fair use policy". That's the name of it,
"fair use". And you'll want to read through that and understand what it says. But it is vague,
okay? It's vague intentionally because they really want to know like what is the point of you using
that content. Are you using a piece of music or using somebody else's
video footage to get the same result that they intended it for? Like if somebody created
a clip that's really entertaining and you put it in your video so that it will entertain,
you can't do that. You just can't do that. But if you're critiquing it and saying, "Look,
they created this video clip to entertain. I want to show you something that they did here. Look at
this technique that they used", right? Some things that you can do is you can use frame
within a frame. So, it's their clip is not taking the full screen. That's a smart thing to do. Also,
you want to make sure that you keep your clips shorter. I like to say 20 seconds is like the
max. If you go longer than that, you're probably going to have a copyright claim. If there's a
longer clip that you want to show, I recommend that you break it up. So, say there's a minute of
somebody else's episode that you want to critique and review maybe you're doing a reaction to. Show
15 seconds of it now and then talk about it. Show another 15 seconds and then talk about it. Now,
everything that I've just shared there is above board, right? You're doing things that abide by
YouTube's "fair use policy". It's like you're presenting it in a different light so that it's
new content for the viewer. There are a lot of people that try and do sneaky things. And I'll
share one sneaky thing because I don't think it's too sneaky but know that this is just a gimmick.
The gimmick is you can change the speed of the clip. So, let's say you play a clip at 110%
of the normal speed, it won't really be noticeable but it's it's different to the algorithm. So,
they'll see it as different content. But I would say only use that if it really fits in your video,
if you're just trying to shorten it or something and definitely follow all the
fair use guidelines. -Yeah. I wanted to talk about some of that low-brow stuff that you're saying.
Because yeah, I've seen people like they'll flip, like they'll do a reverse
image of a video or speeding it up. You know, I know that you're not the judge and jury
here but like is it ethical to do that kind of a thing? If you're asking my opinion, I'll say no,
it's not very ethical to do something like that. And that that could be an easy bar. Like,
I guess you can ask yourself a few questions. Like, "Is the original creator of this content,
are they going to be upset that I'm using the content instead of sending people to
their original video?" Or to ask like, "What is my intent? Am I providing a helpful critique?"
It doesn't necessarily mean that the person has to be happy about it because you might be giving them
a negative review or something like that. YouTube is fine with critiques, they're fine with reviews.
What they want to make sure of is that the content that you're creating is new and your opinion about
somebody else's content is new. -So, tell me about a time where you've had a channel that you've
produced where you've been getting some copyright claims and what you've done to dispute that.
-So, most recently is Nicholeen Peck. She's a parenting expert. And about a decade ago, a little
bit more than a decade ago, she was featured on a BBC show called The World's Strictest Parent.
And really cool, it went viral because of the transformation these foster kids had. They sent
her like the "worst kids in America" and after a couple weeks they would do chores, they would
listen, they would be calm. Pretty miraculous what she's able to do. Well, now that we're producing
her YouTube channel, she's gone back and taken segments of that show and talked about it in
retrospect and talked about and pointed out like the principles and why kids tend to run away and
how to react to this and that. Well, because that show is now owned by Warner Brothers,
we have gotten some copyright claims from Warner Brothers saying, "Hey, you don't have the right
to use this content." So, there's a couple things that we've done and we're doing. Right within the
YouTube analytics, when you see that you've got a copyright claim, you can click on a button and
you can file a dispute. And it allows you to tell your side of the story. Like Nicholeen was given
verbal permission, she was given a dvd of the the show saying you can use it however you want. But
that was like 12 years ago and she doesn't have anything in writing. So, we filed a dispute and
we said that. We said, "Yep, Nicholeen who is in these clips is the star of the show. She was given
permission to use this however she wants. And in fact, we're just providing a review." And many
of these clips have the copyright claim has been released. And so, there's no longer a claim on it
and the videos are back monetized and everything. But there's one episode that they said, "Nope,
we're not going to allow it." And guess what? They didn't give us a strike, they just don't
allow that specific episode to be monetized. Now, the episodes that we've done prior to now,
we had them full screen. And she did use clips longer than 20 seconds. But it's because she had
full permission. And when I talked to Nicholeen about it, she contacted BBC who went through
a chain and she hasn't really been able to get written permission. So, what we've decided to do
is to use this content in a way as if we were using other people's material and follow
the fair use guidelines. So, we're probably going to do 5 or 10 more episodes like this
but we're going to do a frame within a frame. We're going to use shorter clips. And if we do get
a copyright claim, not only can we say, "Yeap, we do have the rights to do it" but we can also say,
"We're following the fair use guidelines." -So, you've brought up getting permission
for using this copyrighted material a couple of times. What's the process to be able to legally
use copyrighted material on your YouTube channel? Well, if it's something that you find elsewhere,
it can be a pretty tough process to get. You've got to find the owner whoever owns that copy right
now and reach out to them which you may or may not you know get that. But you can also go through
sources to find content that you can buy the rights to, right? You can buy royalty-free music
or you can buy b-roll that is royalty-free you have rights to use in your YouTube channels. So,
that's typically what I recommend but if you're reviewing stuff, you're probably not going to get
that permission. So, I recommend right off the bat just following the fair use guidelines.
-So, one of our videographers just asked a question that's important. Like, I see music
on YouTube all the time. It's like the weezer blue album and like you can listen to the whole album.
And it's just like my name is Jonas but it's a picture of a dog. Like, how do people get away
with that? -Well, it's actually pretty cool. What YouTube has figured out a system that if if you
take somebody else's song or you take somebody else's video and you post it on your channel,
YouTube will give those views and that ad revenue, they'll give that credit all to the actual owner
of it elsewhere on YouTube. So, and I know this because Grant Thompson who's no longer with us,
his channel The King of Random, a lot of people would do that. He would post a video
and people would would download the video and post it on their own channel.
aAd sometimes it worked to where they got hundreds of thousands of views. But YouTube gave Grant all
the ad revenue from those views over there. -Yeah. Yeah, good for YouTube. That's awesome.
-So, in this episode, we've talked a lot about the copyright claim topic but you've probably gotten
a sense that there's a lot of other things that I have expertise in on YouTube and I've helped many
channels get great results and I want to show one of those channels to you. So, I'll link to
you this video right here. I interviewed Noelle Randall. Her channel went from 6,000 to 260,000
subscribers in just 1 year. And we talked all about how we did that.