If your copyright-protected work was posted on YouTube without authorisation, you can submit a copyright removal request. If you do so using our webform, you can select the option to prevent copies of the same content from being uploaded again.
Selecting this option means that YouTube will try to automatically prevent copies of the same content that you're requesting for removal from being reuploaded in the future. Bear in mind that your removal request must be found to be complete and valid before any videos are removed or any copies are prevented from being reuploaded.
Selecting the Prevent copies option
Before selecting the Prevent copies option, make sure that you own exclusive worldwide rights to the videos that you're reporting in your removal request. To select the Prevent copies option:
- Start filling in the copyright removal request webform.
- Under Removal options, tick the box next to 'Prevent copies of these videos from appearing on YouTube going forward.'
- Click SUBMIT when you've finished filling in the form.
- Note: Your removal request must be approved before our system starts to find and prevent copies from being uploaded.
- You can also get to the webform from the Copyright page of YouTube Studio. In the Removal requests tab, click NEW REMOVAL REQUEST.
- In some cases, we may also prevent the reupload of a video that contains a copy of content from a video previously removed for copyright infringement, even if you haven't selected the Prevent copies option.
See what's been prevented from reupload
If you selected Prevent copies on your removal request and your removal request is approved, you can see how many copies have been automatically prevented from reupload:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio.
- From the left menu, select Content detection
.
- Click the Removal requests tab.
- Click a row. The row expands to show more details about the video requested for removal.
- In the Automatically prevented column, you can find the number of videos that have been automatically prevented from reupload.
- When the status of this column is Active, it means that YouTube is actively trying to prevent others from reuploading copies of these videos.
Turn off the Prevent copies option
If you selected the Prevent copies option on your removal request, you can turn off the option at any time. Turning it off will allow any future copies of the removed videos to be uploaded. To turn off the option:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio.
- From the left menu, select Content detection
.
- Click the Removal requests tab.
- Click a row. The row expands to show more details about the video requested for removal.
- Untick the box next to Prevent copies.
- Turning off Prevent copies only impacts the videos that are uploaded from that point forwards. Videos that were already removed won't be restored.
- Retracting your removal request will also automatically turn off the feature.