You find your video on someone else’s channel. Sometimes it even gets more views than the original, and recommendations send viewers there. Or another creator takes your thumbnails, title and branding, and people start confusing you.
It’s unpleasant, but a creator has more tools here than it seems. The key is picking the right one.
Three different situations
A full or partial re-upload. It’s copyright infringement, and it can be removed with a rights holder’s complaint.
Use of your thumbnails. A thumbnail is also your work, but in practice it’s less protected: infringers change the image and later put it back.
Copying the channel: name, avatar, branding. If a channel pretends to be you, it breaks the impersonation policy. If your brand is copied, trademark protection may help.
Re-uploads: a copyright removal request
Only the rights holder or their representative can get a re-upload removed. The process:
- Collect links to the infringing videos and to your originals.
- Submit a removal request through YouTube’s copyright form. If your channel is in the Partner Program, the Copyright Match Tool in YouTube Studio is more convenient: it finds re-uploads for you.
- When the video is removed, the infringer gets a copyright strike. Three strikes, and the channel is terminated.
An example from practice: another channel uploaded a creator’s video, and it was hurting the original’s reach. The infringing video was removed quickly, and a complaint was filed against the channel (case). Re-uploads can be removed if you act fast.
Thumbnails: where protection is weak
In one case a creator made unique thumbnails, other channels took them, and YouTube recommended their videos instead of the original. We contacted the infringer; they changed the thumbnail twice but put it back each time. It couldn’t be stopped completely.
The takeaway: thumbnails are less protected than videos. Start with a conversation, record publication dates and source files in parallel, and if the copying is systematic, file copyright complaints on specific videos.
Channel copying
- Impersonation. If a channel uses your name, avatar and branding so that viewers think it’s you, file an impersonation report.
- Name and brand. If the channel or character name is a registered trademark, you can file a trademark complaint. Without registration a name is harder to protect.
What not to do
- Don’t file complaints against videos that use your material for criticism or review with their own commentary: such use can be allowed, and a false complaint is abuse.
- Don’t hire “takedown services” with an unclear reputation: the complaint is filed in your name.
- Don’t start a public feud before filing a complaint: it doesn’t speed up removal.
What next
Each kind of copying has its own tool and its own odds. Which path will work for you depends on what exactly was copied and where.
If your videos are being re-uploaded or your channel is copied, in a consultation I’ll review the situation and tell you which complaint to start with. If, on the contrary, you want to use someone else’s video, see Can you use someone else’s video on YouTube.