Transparency Report

YouTube Copyright Transparency Report

Our Tools Are Cutting Edge

We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop powerful tools to help rightsholders manage their content on YouTube. We have also accumulated over a decade of learnings on how to best balance the needs of rightsholders and creators, and continue to iterate on our tools accordingly.

Key points

Content ID automatically detects reused content in user-uploaded videos. Some rightsholders can also manually search for and claim reused content that was not automatically detected. Over 99% of Content ID claims from bteween July 2023 and December 2023 were made through automated detection, with partners' usage of manual options being exceedingly rare (fewer than 0.5% of total claims).

When partners do make manual claims on videos not detected by our systems, uploaders are more likely to dispute the claim’s validity — fewer than 0.5% of automated claims from between July 2023 and December 2023 were disputed, compared to over 0.9% for manual claims.

99%+
Content ID claims that are made automatically

Automated detection of reused content

Our Emmy award winning Content ID system was the first tool in our Copyright Management Suite to rely on automated detection, and it remains cutting edge today. Based on reference files provided by Content ID partners, YouTube creates digital "fingerprints" for the copyright owner's works and conducts automated scans of the platform to determine when content in an uploaded video matches the reference content. When a match is found, Content ID automatically claims the content. Because of continued investment in our matching technology, over 99% of all claims made by Content ID between July 2023 and December 2023 were automatic.

Despite the power of technology, there are some cases where Content ID fails to identify a match with a user video. This can be due to uploaders’ efforts to evade Content ID or due to the fleeting use of the copyrighted work. For videos missed by automated identification, many Content ID partners have the ability to issue claims manually. While this feature covers an important gap, it accounted for fewer than 0.5% of Content ID claims made between July 2023 and December 2023. For music rightsholders in particular, the automation rate is even higher. Finally, all channels on YouTube also have access to our copyright removal webform to request removal of any content not captured by another tool to which they have access.

We have spent years tuning our tools to automatically detect reuse of content when appropriate. Accordingly, claims made manually by partners are more than twice as likely to result in a dispute than claims made automatically.

99.63%
TypeAmount
Automated1,008,498,132
Manual3,723,117
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Automated: 1,008,498,132 (99.63%)

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Manual: 3,723,117 (0.37%)

Exhibit 3.1 – Automated vs. manual Content ID claims

This chart above shows the number of Content ID claims that were made by automated detection vs. those that were made using Content ID's manual claiming feature.

AutomatedManual0%0.25%0.5%0.75%1%0.42%0.97%
Type
Automated0.42%
Manual0.97%

Exhibit 3.2 – Disputes of automated vs. manual Content ID claims

This chart shows the percentage of claims from Exhibit 3.1 that have been disputed, divided between whether the claim was made by Content ID’s automated detection or by a rightsholder using Content ID's manual claiming feature.

Over time, we've also worked to safely expand automated detection technology to more users. All copyright holders can use our webform to ask us to try to automatically prevent copies of the removed content from being reuploaded. In the second half of 2023 our automated system prevented over 4 million videos from being uploaded because they copied content from videos removed due to copyright removal requests.

4M+
prevented copies of videos removed due to copyright removal requests

Tackling new challenges by continuing to refine our tools

Whether it be fans making reaction videos, aspiring musicians singing covers, or pirates attempting to re-stream a championship soccer game, we understand that there are countless scenarios where rightsholders need a tool that is powerful enough to quickly detect reuse and apply the appropriate policy.

Unfortunately, some individual channels attempt to circumvent the system by transforming the content they upload. This can take many forms, from shifting the pitch of audio to altering the color, orientation, or surroundings of a video. Below are some examples of the types of manipulations channels engage in.

Content ID's match technology must continually adapt to such efforts, without sacrificing its precision. In other words, in the effort to locate transformed copies of a given work, it cannot extrapolate so far that it begins to inaccurately sweep in similar works.

Original

Flipped / Mirrored

Framed

Color shifted

Aspect ratio change

Light effects

Learn more at How YouTube Works

Data Collection Note:
All data in this report is collected between July 2023 through December 2023, unless otherwise annotated as below:

† Data collected as a 'snapshot' in April 2024. Some data, like rate of counter notifications and Content ID disputes, look at "trailing" events. We start with the set of claims or removals made during H2 2023, but disputes and counter notifications continue to accrue after that period because they can be made at any time. For instance, a claim made on November 30, 2023 may have a dispute made on April 1, 2024. For these data points, we have chosen to take a snapshot 3 months after the end of H2 2023.

For previous versions of this report covering Jan 1, 2021 through Dec, 31 2022, refer to the PDF Download Center.