
Creators register their song or video with Content ID and become the copyright holder for that particular piece of intellectual property Let’s break it down and take a closer look at how Content ID technology works in practice. If any part of a video’s soundtrack matches audio files registered to the Content ID database, it can trigger a copyright claim automatically. Just like how Shazam scans your environment for audio that matches its database, Content ID scans the audio of every video uploaded to YouTube.

Imagine Content ID as a sophisticated version of Shazam. In order to make this process possible across the whole platform, YouTube uses a system called Content ID. It’s not YouTube that is making the decision to put a copyright claim on one of your videos it’s merely following the rules by holding offenders accountable if they use someone else’s materials without permission. As a content-sharing platform, YouTube simply upholds copyright laws that cover the whole content creation industry.

The main thing to understand about YouTube’s copyright policies is that they are much, much bigger than YouTube itself. YouTube’s copyright policies – what are they, and how do they work? If you’re looking for more of an introduction to the issue, check out our other blog post for a full overview of copyright rules on YouTube.


