What are the legal steps if someone copies your YouTube content?

So, today, we’re going to discuss the legal steps if someone copies your YouTube content which is posted online. YouTube, being one of the biggest video-based platform, handles the traffic of millions of monthly users. Some, of them being creators as well, who post their original cinematographic work in the form of vlogs, short films, informative videos etc.

After growing their channel to a certain point, the creators start monetizing their videos, simply stated, they start putting ads on their videos, and through the revenue generated from these videos, they earn a livelihood.

But what if these videos are copied by someone else without the permission of the original creator, it’ll be unfair, right? As the revenue will start going to the person who copied the content, and who knows, they might get more engagement, and this just might bury the original creator’s channel.

So, to prevent this problem, we come across the concept of copyright, which is a legal protection for creators of their original content. But there might be many questions in your mind right now, like – How does this actually work in case of YouTube? Are any Indian Laws applicable as well? Do all YouTube videos need to be registered under Indian Copyright law?

All these will be answered as we progress through this blog. Starting off with how YouTube handles your content.

· How YouTube handles Copyright:

YouTube’s copyright and video takedown policy is based on a US Copyright law of 1998, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act i.e. the DCMA. This Act mainly mandated YouTube to act in due procedure in case of any copyright claims. YouTube treats the videos uploaded on its platform as copyrighted material of the original creators and uses various policies and tools to prevent this right from being infringed.

So, simply stated, what YouTube does is, it investigates any content which is reported by the user to be copied by someone other than the original creator, and then, through various methods, takes down the video if the same is uploaded without taking permission from the original creator or getting a license.

· YouTube’s Content ID tool:

YouTube has a tool called Content ID. What this tool does is, once a video is uploaded on the platform, this tool scans the video and its audio and grants the particular video a unique “Content ID”.

Why is this done? If, in the future, someone copies and posts the same video online, their ID’s will match, and video will be barred from uploading just because it carried copied content from someone else. Original owner can also seek to get the copied video monetized for revenue to go to him/herself. The owner can also request to get the video analytics data and keep the copied video running.

And, as per reports, most of the content creators, choose to gain the revenue from copied videos as well, without actually taking them down.

•  Note for the Creators: Any creator, posting content on YouTube, must know that, even though, YouTube removes most of the copied content through its various tools, but still, a creator must know that YouTube has a policy of paying ad revenue to the person who posts copied content until a claim is made by the original creator.

· Copyright Strike:

If somehow, the video escapes the content id system, one can report the same under rights infringement option. One can even file a complaint under DCMA by issuing a self-declaration. A takedown notice is filed that initiates a proceeding against the person who copies the content under the law such as DCMA, but the proceedings are not like the proper legal proceedings that are initiated under a statute in India. Under these proceedings, YouTube generally files a copyright strike on the channel in the form of a warning that also includes the removal of the copied video. If 3 copyright strikes are successful against a channel, the same gets removed and the person is banned from creating any more channels.

As the Indian Law is not internationally applicable, so, we will also discuss the legal rights if the copyright of an Indian creator is infringed by another Indian creator. And discuss a bit about how international conventions affect your rights as well.

· Indian Legal Perspective:

Under the Indian Legal system, registration of a YouTube video as a copyright is not mandatory and might be difficult as well for the people uploading many videos on a daily basis, but having a registered copyrighted video is better legal proof comparatively.

For registration of a YouTube Video, the same has to be done under the Category of “Cinematograph Film” which includes movies, videos, vlogs etc. and this can be done for a YouTube video as well, as long as it’s a unique and original work of a creator.

And, if someone has copied a video on YouTube, one can initiate legal proceedings under S.51 of the Copyright Act as the copying of a video includes the reproduction, communication and publication of an original work in front of the public which proves all the essentials of infringement under this Section. The exceptions under S.52 apply as well.

This can be done, even if there the work is changed a bit, but most part is copied.

· Remedies for Infringement:

• Civil Remedy:

  Under the Civil remedies, the court can grant injunction, damages, accounts info. and can even make the person copying the content to return the profits earned from using the copied video to the original owner. However, defence is given to those who prove that they didn’t have the knowledge of the content being copyrighted.

• Criminal Remedy:

  The criminal provisions punish those who knowingly copy the content of the original creator and are punished with imprisonment up-to 3 years and fine up to Rs.2,00,000.

* International Application:

So, we have seen that what will happen legally if someone infringes another person’s originally copyrighted work on YouTube (through DCMA) and in Indian legal system as well, but, what if, someone infringes YouTube video’s content internationally, i.e. some international creator, violates the right of an Indian creator.

This is protected because of India being signatory to the Berne Convention which is signed by 178 countries and protects the copyright rights of the citizens of the signatory countries. But because of varied copyright laws throughout the world, YouTube’s method of resolution suits all creators.

In Conclusion, So, to conclude, we can say that even though the copyright law is not the same throughout the world, and the application of Municipal laws on the International laws is sometimes difficult, so, YouTube has developed their platform level action which is again based on a law and YouTube policies as well which protects the copyrights of the original creators internationally and being based on a law, the method of resolution is of legal nature as well.