Note: The YouTube Content ID API is intended for use by YouTube content partners and is not accessible to all developers or to all YouTube users. If you do not see the YouTube Content ID API as one of the services listed in the Google API Console, see the YouTube Help Center to learn more about the YouTube Partner Program.
YouTube's rights management system enables asset owners and administrators to provide YouTube with metadata, ownership data, and reference material for their assets. The system lets owners set policies for their assets and claim YouTube content that matches those assets. They can also create publicly viewable YouTube videos from the reference videos for their assets.
This document provides an overview of the core components of YouTube's rights management model – assets, rights designations, and claims.
Assets
Assets are pieces of intellectual property. YouTube recognizes the following different types of assets:
- Composition
- Movie
- Music video
- Sound recording
- Television episode
- Web video
Every asset must have associated metadata that identifies and describes the asset. The metadata could be used to locate the asset (through a search interface or API, for example). YouTube could also use the metadata to eliminate duplication within its Asset Catalog. In addition to displaying in Content Management System (CMS), asset metadata might be visible to YouTube users on the YouTube website or in other applications that use YouTube data.
Assets have several other important characteristics:
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Ownership information identifies the parties who own the asset and the territories where each owner claims ownership. As such, different parties can own the same asset in different territories. In addition, composition assets support partial ownership, allowing owners to specify the percentage of a composition that they own in each territory.
Frequently, an asset's owner owns and administers rights for an asset in the same territories.
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Reference material is a digital copy of the asset or an ID file (fingerprint) of the asset. Reference material enables YouTube to automatically match user- and partner-uploaded content to an asset.
An asset can have multiple reference files. For example, an asset might have separate reference files with 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios.
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Assets can embed other assets. Embedding occurs when an asset appears within another asset to create new reference material. For example, a sound recording asset always embeds a composition asset. However, the same composition can be used in multiple sound recordings, each of which constitutes a different asset.
This notion is critical to a robust rights management system. By recognizing embedded assets and their associated rights, YouTube ensures that all content owners and administrators can set policies for their assets even when those assets are contained within some other content.
The diagram below illustrates YouTube's asset model:
Rights Designations
A rights designation defines rules and parameters for the playback and/or usage of an asset. A rights designation can apply to either video content uploaded by the asset's owner or administator, by another YouTube partner, or by a YouTube user.
A rights designation specifies the administrative rights granted to that rights holder as well as the policies to apply for video content containing the asset. A policy, in turn, specifies both an action as well as a set of conditions that explain when the action should be taken.
A rights designation has four components:
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The rights administrator sets policies for an asset in a particular territory or group of territories. The administrator could be the rights owner or another party acting on behalf of the rights owner. As discussed above, asset owners typically administer rights for their own content.
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The rights explain the circumstances when the administrator controls policies for an asset. For most types of assets, YouTube assumes that the rights administrator administers all of the rights that are relevant to distribution of the content on YouTube or in applications that use YouTube content.
In some cases, the rights administrator for an asset also controls the policies for embedded assets contained within that asset. For example, a movie studio typically clears the rights for any sound recordings used in a movie.
However, in other cases, the rights administrator for an asset may not also control the rights for embedded assets contained within that asset. For example, the rights administrator for a sound recording might not also control the rights for the composition embedded in the sound recording. In these cases, YouTube can only monetize the sound recording asset if the composition's rights administrator has also specified a policy to monetize the composition. If the rights administrators have specified different policies, YouTube enforces the more conservative policy.
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The action determines how YouTube handles a piece of content if the content matches the rules of the rights designation. YouTube supports the following actions, which are listed from most conservative to least conservative:
- Block – YouTube prevents the content from appearing on YouTube's public website.
- Track – The content appears on YouTube's website. YouTube does not monetize the content but flags the content so that the rights owner can track it.
- Monetize – The content appears on YouTube's website. YouTube can monetize the content (by showing ads, for example) and the content is included in the rights owner's revenue-sharing agreement with YouTube.
Rights owners can also specify conditions for an action. For example, a policy could instruct YouTube to monetize matching content in certain territories or to monetize videos that match at least a given percentage of an asset. Policies can be set on an asset-by-asset basis.
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Rules, or conditions, explain how a rights holder administers an asset. In combination with an action, a set of rules determines how YouTube handles a piece of copyrighted content by specifying whether and how a rights owner wants its content to be available on YouTube.
Policies can specify the following types of conditions:
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A policy can apply to either claimed content that was uploaded by either the rights administrator, another YouTube user, or both. A policy applied to content uploaded by the rights administrator is called a usage policy, and a policy applied to user-uploaded content is called a match policy.
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Match conditions are rules that only apply if the content that might be claimed matches an asset's reference material in a specific way. Match conditions can only apply to content that YouTube's Content Identification system claims automatically on a rights owner's behalf. YouTube supports the following match conditions for uploaded content:
- Match type – an indication of whether the content matches the audio component, the visual component, or both components of an asset's reference material.
- Percentage ownership – the percentage of the content for which the administrator holds rights.
- Match length – the length of the content segment that matches the asset's reference material.
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Watch conditions, or user conditions, are rules that apply depending on specific characteristics of the user trying to watch the video. YouTube supports the following watch conditions:
- User territory – the location of the user watching and/or hearing the content.
- Viewing platform – the medium through which the user is trying to watch the content. You can choose to distribute your videos on all platforms or only on monetized platforms.
- Viewing location – the website where the user is trying to watch the content. Rights owners can allow their content to only be embeddable on certain websites. Note that YouTube currently supports the option to allow content to be embedded on non-YouTube websites on a per-claim basis. In addition, YouTube supports the ability to enable embedding only on specific websites on a per-account basis.
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Handling Rights Designations
The following points explain how YouTube handles rights designations:
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An asset can have multiple rights designations, but each rights designation is associated with a single asset.
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Rights designations are applied to partner-uploaded content and user-uploaded content during the claiming process.
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A rights designation may only apply within a particular territory. For example, a rights owner who administers an asset in the United States would not specify how claimed content that matches that asset would be handled in other countries.
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A single administrator could manage an asset on behalf of rights owners in different territories.
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The rights that YouTube must obtain to deliver content can vary for different types of content. Consequently, YouTube may need agreements with multiple rights administrators to display a single piece of content. For example, music publishers control many different types of rights, some of which may be administered by third parties like music labels, performance rights organizations, or collecting societies.
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A rights designation can define different rules for an asset depending on whether it is used in an embedded or standalone context.
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A rights designation cannot associate the same set of rules with different actions. For example, a rights designation cannot have one rule that claimed content is monetized if the match length is greater than 30 seconds, and another rule that claimed content is tracked if the match length is greater than 30 seconds. This example is not valid since the two rules specify different actions for the same set of conditions.
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However, the rights designation could have one rule that claimed content is monetized if the match length is less than 30 seconds and another rule that claimed content is tracked if the match length is greater than 30 seconds. In the latter case, each action is associated with different conditions.
Claims
A claim links an uploaded video that matches an asset to a rights designation associated with that asset. The rights designation specifies the policies that the rights administrator wants to apply to the claim.