Will YouTube Terminate Your Account for Submitting Copyright Takedown Request?

Recently, we found out a lot of YouTube videos infringing our copyright but they did not show up in the YouTube ‘Copyright Match’ Tool in my account. They’ve overcome the system by using very short portions, messing them up, zooming in a little, or using many still images instead of clips. They used our works without permission and even removed logo in the corner, therefore, I had to take action to take them down as soon as possible. The question is that the violation is a little difficult to describe and I was wondering if YouTube staff would watch the video to find it.

As usual, you can file the copyright complaint manually on this page. Here you can also read the warning that you shouldn’t make false claims as they could lead to the suspension of your account. The next step is to fill in information in the Copyright Infringement Notification. You should paste the video URLs of the infringing video and your original video, then select “my YouTube video was reuploaded by another user”. The next step is to describe the infringement and you should do it carefully, otherwise, YouTube staff could consider your claim fraudulent.

In the past few months, YouTube has made some changes to make the system less prone to abuse. Since this user didn’t reupload the whole video and used just some still images, you will need to point out one duplicate part in the two videos. I entered exact timestamps of the image in the infringing video and the original part in my video. And following is the confirmation after submitting the complaint:

Thank you for your submission. Please note that if more information is needed to process your takedown request, we will email the address associated with your account, along with any additional email addresses you may have provided.
If you receive one of these emails from us, it’s important that you reply with the requested information. This is especially critical if the email indicates that we suspect abuse of the copyright takedown process, as not responding to one of these emails within a week may result in the termination of your YouTube account.

YouTube will review the accuracy of the timestamps and in case everything is matched, the infringing video should be removed within a few hours. If your provided information is unclear, Youtube will send you an email asking for clarification.

You should respond to this email as soon as possible because they could terminate your account if they don’t receive your email within 7 days. In a recent blog post, Youtube stated that they will revoke the access to manual copyright claiming if copyright owners repeatedly fail to provide accurate information.

Therefore, you shouldn’t be worried about YouTube account termination as long as you provide accurate date in your copyright takedown requests.