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How does YouTube prevent content piracy on the platform?

We have invested millions of dollars to develop a Copyright Management Suite designed to balance the needs of the entire ecosystem. We work with rights holders and creators of all types to match them to the appropriate features based on the scale of their content on YouTube and the capabilities that they've dedicated to responsibly manage their content online.

Safeguarding copyright

Our Copyright Management Suite gives rights holders control of their copyrighted material on YouTube. It is powered by Content ID matching, best-in-class technology used to detect potentially infringing content. It consists of our public DMCA webform, available to all two billion users who come to YouTube; the Copyright Match Tool, our tool designed specifically for creators and available to over 1,500,000 of them; and Content ID, our enterprise solution for those with scaled rights management needs like music labels, movie studios or collection societies.

After providing us with reference files, Content ID and Copyright Match Tool users are automatically notified of user-uploaded videos that may contain their creative work. Additionally, Content ID users can choose in advance what they want to happen when those videos are detected. Thanks to the different options that Content ID gives copyright owners, it's not just an anti-piracy solution, but also a revenue-generation tool. YouTube has paid more than $5.5 billion to rightsholders from ad revenue alone, from content that they've claimed and monetised through Content ID.