YouTube requires timestamp for video copyright complaint

YouTube has introduced a new policy requiring rightsholders who manually file a complaint about a potential copyright violation in a YouTube video to timestamp their complaint.

With this time stamp, rightholders have to indicate very precisely where their content appears in a YouTube video. Previously, such a manual complaint did not require them to indicate which part of a video they considered to be infringing copyright. That did not always make it easy for the creators or uploaders of a video, because they then had to find which part of their video would not be acceptable.

Now, if a video maker is confronted with a justified report that he has infringed copyright with a part of a video, he can use new tools to remove the fragment in question from the video. For example, it is now possible to switch off the sound in the relevant section or to insert an alternative piece of music from the YouTube audio library. In addition, there is a Trim function in the YouTube Editor with which the affected part can be cut from the video. YouTube says it is working on further improvements, such as using the Trim option with a single click. The video platform emphasizes that if an uploader is faced with a copyright claim, he still has the right to dispute this claim.

This concerns a number of rightholders who are able to manually forward a report via the Manual Claiming tool within Content ID. The much more common, non-manual, automated notifications via YouTube’s Content ID system have always included a timestamp.