YouTube Shorts Permissions & Copyright in Detail

YouTube recently introduced a new permission that in theory could allow any creator to use your content on their YouTube Shorts, but in the real world, what does that actually mean?   Just in case you're out of the loop on this one, YouTube have recently added the Shorts permission to your videos. Quite apart from what it actually does, it's a pretty annoying permission in a sense that it automatically opts all of your existing videos into it with no bulk way to switch it off. 

Now, what this has led to and understandably so, is creators panicking about protecting their content, and then going through potentially hundreds of videos manually unticking that box. Well, I'm here to tell you, don't do that. That's because YouTube have a new support post that I will link to just below the light button that states the following, "In the coming weeks, we'll also add the option to bulk opt out all videos, as well as set default upload settings." Thanks YouTube, really appreciated, but why didn't you do this to begin with.

 It all would have saved us a little bit of stress over the last few days. Okay, so now the logistics of this permission have been solved. Let's do what does best and jump into the detail. The why's, the how's and the consequences. The why, I think pretty much boils down to this, TikTOK has become a serious incredible threat to YouTube's dominance, and Shorts has been YouTube is answer to this. But quite apart from that, there's been the huge shift in attitudes towards copyright. TikTok creators have seemingly gone to war with how we all traditionally understand what we can, and can't use in our video content and this has led to what can be seen as YouTube's rigid approach to copyright, feeling well, yeah, just a little outdated. And so this is where YouTube have started to respond to creators more liberal use of copyrighted content by signing up major music labels, to allow creators to use that music legitimately in their videos, and that's where we begin with the how, using someone else's music in your YouTube Short. 

Oh heaven. So let's make my first Short using the actual Short's camera tool. I'm going to keep this one nice and simple. The only complication being to add music, and this is what YouTube currently offers. I can swipe through popular tracks, do a specific search, and even bookmark my favorites. If I tap on some music, it will play a preview, and once I've selected it, I can then start recording with the music itself. 

The moment I press record, that music will start playing, and I have to somehow make this interesting, even though I have no rhythm whatsoever. Also, just to make things complicated, I'm having to talk over this music to try and avoid getting hit with an unnecessary copyright claim on this video. We've just entered copyright inception folks. Once the recording is done, you can add all sorts of effects, but that's a video for another day. 

Here, I'm just going to add some simple texts, and upload it to a test channel. Note by the way that when you upload a Short, there is no option to add video tags. And here's the final result from a viewer's point of view, a YouTube Short from your favorite creator, accompanied hopefully by some of your favorite music. Now, here's the key component to all of this. Because you used integrated YouTube tools, it allows a viewer to tap this sound button in the bottom right-hand corner. 

The viewer can then look at what other creators have made with their YouTube Shorts from the same music. At the very top of the screen, you will see the source YouTube video from wherever music came from. And if you want, tap the bottom of the screen to start making a brand new YouTube Short using this music. Okay then. So let's think about the consequences at this point. Remember, what I've just done, is taken very popular copyright music and upload it to YouTube, which a year ago, you simply wouldn't be able to do without some sort of penalty. 

Well, not anymore. In the YouTube studio, we can see when videos are pinged with copyright claims and a year ago on this test channel, I uploaded a video that got hit with a fair and legitimate claim. All the details, you can click into, and you can learn a lot more about how all of this works throughout dedicated tutorial. However, what about that YouTube Short I just uploaded with the levitating music soundtrack. Nothing, nada, not a single mention of copyright. So with no copyright claims, that means we can monetize this video, right? No, nada, it's a YouTube Short.

 You can't monetize them just yet, but anyway, enough about that because I want to show you something really interesting, and to be honest, really quite funny. I decided to download the video I had just made off of YouTube, which you are well within your rights to do, since it is your own content, but at the same time, I'm now taking a video off of YouTube that has copyright music on it. So once I had deleted the original video I had made it through the YouTube Shorts camera tool, I reuploaded the video I just downloaded, and would you believe it? I got dinged with a copyright claim. 

That's right folks. The same video, that moments before had no restrictions, was now blocked in certain countries, so that's fair warning to all of those bad actors out there, not that any of them are watching this video. It is not all of a sudden, open season, or a wild west of copyright out there on YouTube. If you manually upload videos to YouTube, as you have done using the standard tools in the past, and that video contains copyrighted material, then you are still likely to get a copyright claim and maybe even a copyright strike. However, if you use YouTube's integrated tools through that YouTube Shorts camera, 

I guess in YouTube walled garden, then you should be protected from any copyright claims because YouTube is giving you the opportunity to use that through their tool. Now, for the average creator on the street, this is a good thing. It's something that we've all been wanting for probably a decade at this point, and it's taken a very long time for the music labels to come around to this way of thinking.

 But when we start talking about your content, then it gets a little more personal. The thought of spending hours and hours and hours making content, only for some other creator to come and "borrow" it with YouTube's blessing and support, is unconscionable. And that for many creators, especially those who've been on the platform for a long time, just aren't ready to embrace yet. It's not in their DNA to freely share their content. As a much younger video platform, new creators are more willing to embrace, try, and indeed collaborate on the idea of shared video content.

 But with YouTube, you've got 15 years of well-established expectations to break down. Well, seemingly YouTube have taken the sledgehammer approach with this new permission, or at least on first impressions, it feels like that, but in truth, in reality, how do creators make use of this new permission? (upbeat music) The audio is attributed to this Short, even though technically, it's licensed music from outlast.io which we pay for. So with all of that being said, try and wrap your head around this. Any creator could take the audio from this YouTube Shorts, my YouTube Shorts, and create a brand new YouTube Shorts from the audio and that's what I did. (upbeat music) So then, what about consequences?

 Here's what that new YouTube Shorts looks like. It's public, there are no restrictions, no reference of any kind that I have used another channel's audio from a video. As for the original content, well, when I jumped into the video details, there is absolutely no evidence, no information to tell me that another creator has just made a YouTube Short from the audio of this video. There isn't even a sniff of a mention in the copyright matching tool. So in summary, what am I trying to say here? Well, basically any creator on YouTube of any size can use audio from any YouTube Shorts, from a channel of any size, and it's all thanks to this button that we can see on every single YouTube Short. 

But hang on a second. This permission that YouTube have just introduced, is supposed to protect our content from this, right? Well, it's not as simple as that. Not all videos can opt out and it just so happens that it's YouTube Shorts that can't opt out of audio sampling. So to put all of that into a single sentence, you as a YouTube Short creator, allow audio from any of your YouTube Shorts to be used by any other creator within YouTube Short. But where does that leave long-form content? 

Well, the truth is, I don't really know. I followed the instructions from the support page, but no create Short button can be found on my long-form videos. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be in this part of the screen because when I viewed a Shorts video, I do get the option to sample the audio into a new YouTube Short. So it looks as if the true purpose of this permission will have to wait until this YouTube tool is released. That does not mean I've just wasted 10 minutes of your time. Well, hopefully not, because we enjoy each other's company, right? And there's three big takeaways from this video, one that I haven't even mentioned. 

The first is that bulk option that YouTube are rolling out which is going to allow you to turn that permission off for all of your long-form content, and instantly fix the issue if you never dabbled in YouTube Shorts. On top of this, everything we're talking about today, revolves around audio only. There is still no options for any creators to sample parts of your video. Having said that, we are opening up a Pandora's box which is never going to be closed, and it could only get wider. And I think eventually, it will include video sharing as well. 

That remains to be seen. And finally, there is this, blink in, you will miss it message that appears when you first start sampling audio with YouTube Shorts. By using YouTube music, you agree that the video is for personal non-commercial use. This has serious monetization ramifications that someone with a more illegal background should maybe look into. My hope is that, eventually this type of protection will be offered to individual creators as well, with their content. Or is that wishful thinking? Anyway, this was an incredibly complicated video to make, and I really appreciate you getting to the end of this. And because you did, I'm going to reward you with a secret word that I want you to post in the comments below just to confuse everybody else who didn't get this far. Jasper is king, because he's my dog, and I love him.