YouTube, like many websites that permit users to upload and publish content, has policies under which a third party may provide notice to YouTube that it has a good faith belief that material (e.g. videos) appearing on the site infringe their copyright. Upon receipt of a proper notice, YouTube can shield itself from liability for copyright infringement with respect to such material if it responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access
to such.

After removing or disabling the allegedly infringing material, YouTube can also shield itself from liability to the person who posted the material online by promptly notifying such party of its actions. Counter notification procedures allow the party who posted the material to dispute the claim of copyright infringement which could result in YouTube reversing its actions and notifying the third party who alleged infringement that it will replace the removed material or cease disabling access to it.

The legal requirements surrounding these various notice and take down procedures are set forth in greater detail in US Copyright Law, 17 USC 512 (Limitations on liability relating to material online).

If you post videos to YouTube and receive notice that one or more of your videos is being removed because of a copyright infringement claim by a third party, what do you do? Here’s a handy How To Dispute Copyright Claims video, posted by a YouTube user, which explains how to access your YouTube account and contest a claim of infringement by providing counter notification using the tools and account features made available by YouTube.

The video is not legal advice but does show how to use your account features to accomplish this, assuming you’re on solid legal ground.

Schein & Cai can advise you with respect to all copyright matters. We assist companies in Silicon Valley and beyond, including San Jose, Santa Clara, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Morgan Hill, Oakland, San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, South San Francisco, Daly City, Cupertino, Saratoga and Emeryville.