YouTube Music and Thumbnail Copyright Laws

[LeoGaming]

Hey there freedom family! Hope you guys are having an amazing day! I have many videos on my channel and the fact that I did not credit any artists (NoCopyrightSounds, and others) when I used their music for my videos in the description box made me a little worried of a strike. I also did get thumbnail backgrounds from google images and used them without crediting anybody or trying to get images that were copyright free (Please note that I did add stuff like filters and text for all thumbnails). Will I need to change the descriptions of all my videos or can I just leave it as it is?

 

[zeke morgan]

If you using music I would always recommend that you include a disclaimer, especially if this is being provided by people such as NoCopyrightSound who stipulate you can use their music as long as you give them credit. Also if your using someone else's work, for example images or the like you should also include a disclaimer if that image has been copyrighted - while this wouldn't necessarily protect you if they choose to make a copyright claim (for example on images) it can show you made an effort to not pass the work off as your own.

Ideally when using any material that is not your own you should either make sure it falls within 'fair use' as defined by law, or have written permission from the author / creator beforehand

 

[LeoGaming]

If you using music I would always recommend that you include a disclaimer, especially if this is being provided by people such as NoCopyrightSound who stipulate you can use their music as long as you give them credit. Also if your using someone else's work, for example images or the like you should also include a disclaimer if that image has been copyrighted - while this wouldn't necessarily protect you if they choose to make a copyright claim (for example on images) it can show you made an effort to not pass the work off as your own.

Ideally when using any material that is not your own you should either make sure it falls within 'fair use' as defined by law, or have written permission from the author / creator beforehand

Alright dude! Thanks for the reply! But to be safe do you think it’s necessary to change all my thumbnails and for the music just including something like music provided by NCS. Will I need to do that in order to keep myself out of the risk of claims and strikes?

 

[zeke morgan]

I would definitely include a disclaimer when using the music, as for the thumbnails you should be relatively safe on those, as I haven't seen many people getting claims / strikes for using images. Just be more careful in the future and be sure to include disclaimers when your not using your own work

 

[Koala_Steamed]

As Zeke said I've never heard anyone get a copyright claim from a thumbnail, although you never know they may start cracking down on it at some point. If so try to edit it to make it your own style.

For the music definitely try to find the song and artist name and credit that in the description. The more info in your description the better when it comes to video search anyway

 

[LeoGaming]

As Zeke said I've never heard anyone get a copyright claim from a thumbnail, although you never know they may start cracking down on it at some point. If so try to edit it to make it your own style.

For the music definitely try to find the song and artist name and credit that in the description. The more info in your description the better when it comes to video search anyway

I would definitely include a disclaimer when using the music, as for the thumbnails you should be relatively safe on those, as I haven't seen many people getting claims / strikes for using images. Just be more careful in the future and be sure to include disclaimers when your not using your own work

Thanks a lot guys! What I may wanna do is add credits for all video descriptions and change all thumbnails slowly. But I will only change thumbnails after I finish updating all video descriptions! That would make me 100% clean of copyright infringement!

 

[pulse]

You can just leave it as it is, leaving a disclaimer doesn't change anything, you'll still get a content ID strike either way. However with none copyright music, It's your choice if you want to credit them or not.

 

[LW]

I just now got the time to write a thought through reply to this, I swear I've opened this one five times wanting to reply already...

For the music part it's a "you should do it but they can't really enforce it". Content ID only scans for sufficient matches in the content and not for description attributions. I'm 99% certain companies like NCS run content ID over their originally licensed stuff for tracking usage which isn't visible to others. However they a) don't have the tools and b) don't have the need to enforce this, especially not for Timmy with five subscribers putting it into his uncut 2 hour minecraft let's play in 144p without properly attributing it. I wouldn't worry too much about that.

The thumbnail stuff is where it gets really tricky. Just a few months ago I heard of an Austrian website getting charged quite a bit for using a background image they found on Google images, also my school had the same thing with a project a few years ago. For that while it's the same "You shouldn't do it but they 99.9% won't do anything about it" it's a bit more risky. As an attribution only saves your ass under very specific licences (e.g. CC-BY-SA) it also isn't the ticket in most cases. Fair use is the thing you could likely put most thumbnails behind though, unless you're copying the thumbnail 1:1 or just changing the background color you should be OK.

What we learn from this? Copyright is a party pooper but it doesn't affect many parties. (I'm bad at analogies)

 

[Hyderpony]

I know with audiomicro you need to credit by saying:

http://audiomicro.com/royalty-free-music
Sound Effects by http://audiomicro.com/sound-effects

You not allowed to give away the track name

 

[LeoGaming]

I know with audiomicro you need to credit by saying:

http://audiomicro.com/royalty-free-music
Sound Effects by http://audiomicro.com/sound-effects

You not allowed to give away the track name

I see... Thanks for the info![DOUBLEPOST=1517302861][/DOUBLEPOST]

I just now got the time to write a thought through reply to this, I swear I've opened this one five times wanting to reply already...

For the music part it's a "you should do it but they can't really enforce it". Content ID only scans for sufficient matches in the content and not for description attributions. I'm 99% certain companies like NCS run content ID over their originally licensed stuff for tracking usage which isn't visible to others. However they a) don't have the tools and b) don't have the need to enforce this, especially not for Timmy with five subscribers putting it into his uncut 2 hour minecraft let's play in 144p without properly attributing it. I wouldn't worry too much about that.

The thumbnail stuff is where it gets really tricky. Just a few months ago I heard of an Austrian website getting charged quite a bit for using a background image they found on Google images, also my school had the same thing with a project a few years ago. For that while it's the same "You shouldn't do it but they 99.9% won't do anything about it" it's a bit more risky. As an attribution only saves your ass under very specific licences (e.g. CC-BY-SA) it also isn't the ticket in most cases. Fair use is the thing you could likely put most thumbnails behind though, unless you're copying the thumbnail 1:1 or just changing the background color you should be OK.

What we learn from this? Copyright is a party pooper but it doesn't affect many parties. (I'm bad at analogies)

You can just leave it as it is, leaving a disclaimer doesn't change anything, you'll still get a content ID strike either way. However with none copyright music, It's your choice if you want to credit them or not.

Oh cool! So for the thumbnails, as Long as you change something about it, they can’t do anything to you. That’s what I did for all, added some filters, text, and stuff like that. So I’m safe! But for the music, won’t I get a strike or claim if a mean guy decides to report my video for copyright infringement?

 

[LW]

Oh cool! So for the thumbnails, as Long as you change something about it, they can’t do anything to you. That’s what I did for all, added some filters, text, and stuff like that. So I’m safe! But for the music, won’t I get a strike or claim if a mean guy decides to report my video for copyright infringement?

If you use something without full certainty about having full rights to use it you can get into trouble for it. Only way to bypass strikes for unlawful use of content is... to use it legally.

 

[Vigilant]

AFAIK with thumbnails you have no worries, in the old MCN I worked at they had a huge legal team and IIRC they said thumbnails fall under fair use and it's literally like 99.99% chance you'll never have an issue with it.

 

[IvyPlayGamez]

in musics, i always have both the music in the video and description, or at least the majority of times almost 90 i have the link to the original artist

 

[LeoGaming]

If you use something without full certainty about having full rights to use it you can get into trouble for it. Only way to bypass strikes for unlawful use of content is... to use it legally.

AFAIK with thumbnails you have no worries, in the old MCN I worked at they had a huge legal team and IIRC they said thumbnails fall under fair use and it's literally like 99.99% chance you'll never have an issue with it.

in musics, i always have both the music in the video and description, or at least the majority of times almost 90 i have the link to the original artist

I see. Thanks for the advice guys!