YouTube Content ID for streamers: earn from clip channels

What clip channels do with your streams

A clip channel takes a few minutes from a long stream, adds a title and a thumbnail, and uploads it. Some are run by fans or by editors you hired. Others run dozens of channels and upload the same moments many times, with the picture cropped or sped up so that it slips past matching. They earn from your audience, and you see none of it.

You have the usual options for a copy you didn't approve. You can message the channel, file a copyright removal request, or claim it with Content ID. Our guide to what to do when someone re-uploads your video compares them. For streamers, the number of copies usually makes the choice: when a stream produces twenty clips by the next morning, removing them one by one never ends.

What qualifies, and what doesn't

YouTube's page on content eligible for Content ID lists video gameplay footage, unless you are the game's publisher, among the material that cannot be used as a reference. The reasoning is simple: the game looks the same in every player's video, so a reference built on it would match uploads that have nothing to do with you.

That leaves plenty for most streamers:

• Your camera and voice. Facecam, reactions, commentary and anything you say on stream are yours.
• IRL and just-chatting streams. Footage you filmed yourself qualifies as a whole.
• Your own segments. Original music, animation, sketches and overlays you made.

When a stream mixes your camera with a game, a Content ID service can set exclusions, so that claims rest on your parts only. Streams that are almost entirely gameplay, or that use music, clips or broadcasts you don't own, are much harder to claim, and some can't be claimed at all.

How it works with Aegis

Aegis is a Content ID service: YouTube grants Content ID directly only to some rights owners, and our guide to how independent creators get Content ID explains how services fit in. Content ID matches uploads against reference files, so the footage you want protected has to be supplied as references. If you already upload VODs or highlights to your own YouTube channel, you can give us the channel or a playlist link, and we add the videos in bulk.

From there we claim the clips on YouTube and handle the work that comes with it: exclusions for the parts you don't own, disputes, false claims and overlapping references. We also look for the copies that automatic matching misses, because clip channels often crop, re-render, cut or speed up a clip. Your earnings are broken down by asset and by claim, so you can see which streams the clip channels copy most.

Aegis works with streamers. Read about our partnership with Jynxzi, one of Twitch's largest channels, and about Twitch's policy on streaming elsewhere.

Fan clips, fair use and licensing

Not every clip is a copy. A reaction or commentary video that uses a few seconds of your stream to say something new may be fair use. YouTube's fair use page explains the four factors, and our blog post on the Adin Ross case shows how quickly that line becomes a dispute. Uploaders can dispute a claim, and the claimant has 30 days to respond.

If you'd rather work with the clippers than against them, an Aegis license page lets a clip channel request a license. When you approve, your claim stays on their uploads and the revenue is shared on terms you set.

Your own live streams

YouTube scans every live stream for matches to other owners' content, and Content ID claims on a stream are only made after it ends, if you archive it.