MUMBAI: YouTube has a number of ways for copyright owners to protect their work like content ID, but has taken another big step towards solving this long time problem for creators with its Copyright Match tool.

The tool works by scanning videos that have been uploaded to the platform and seeing if there is anything that is the same or similar. If there is a match, it will show the user, and then, action can be taken. YouTube does stress that it is important that original creators be the first to upload their video to the service because that is the way that it will determine who should be shown matches.

The creator can get in touch with the other channel or simply request the video to be removed if matches are found. This action can happen instantly or after a seven-day delay, the latter option is there in order to give the offender time to correct the issue. This could become a slippery slope for YouTube and, as such, the firm has also made it clear that when creators are taking action, they should carefully consider whether the matched videos are fair use or fall under some other exception.

“Before taking action, we ask that you carefully evaluate each match to confirm that you own the rights to the matched content and ensure that you believe it infringes on your copyright. You should not file a copyright takedown request for content that you do not own exclusively, such as public domain content. You should also consider whether the matched content could be considered fair use or could be subject to some other exceptions to copyright and hence not require permission for reuse,” reads the creator blog by YouTube.

Next week, YouTube will start rolling this tool out to creators with more than 1,00,000 subscribers. As this is a powerful feature, it will monitor usage closely and will continue to expand over the coming months with the long-term goal of making it available to every creator in the YouTube Partner program.