Can You Use Movie Clips on YouTube
In theory, you can use some film clips on YouTube. However, you need to meet some conditions YouTube sets to use them legally on the YouTube platform.
Copyright refers to the special rights that creators have over their works. These rights prevent others from using their work without their permission. Most movies on YouTube are copyrighted. Even if you only want to take a small clip from a film, you should still consider the film’s copyright.
Although you cannot use copyrighted movies on YouTube at will, you can use them in a limited way for certain purposes. For example, commentary, news reporting, research, etc.
How to Use Movie Clips on YouTube Without Copyright
Many creators encounter copyright issues when uploading videos with a particular film clip. The YouTube video may fail to upload. Even if some videos with a particular film clip are uploaded successfully, you may still encounter copyright warnings or channel bans later. However, you can try the following methods to avoid these situations.
# Add Credit
If you need to show a copyrighted movie clip in your YouTube video, you can credit the source when the movie clip plays. You can also cite the source of the movie clip in the video or add the movie source in the video description box when you upload the video.
# Don’t Display Movie Clips for Too Long
There are a large number of creators who upload copyrighted movie clips to YouTube every day. Based on the experience of these creators, if a copyrighted movie clip is shown for more than 5 seconds in a YouTube video, you may receive a copyright warning. Therefore, it is best not to show the movie clips you capture for more than 5 seconds.
# Adding Value Through Commentary
To avoid copyright on YouTube, you can provide your new insights, analysis, or criticism alongside a movie clip to give viewers a little insight into the film.
# Avoid Key Scenes in Movies
A film’s key scenes and images are its biggest selling points. If you reveal these clips in your video, it may be considered to diminish the market value of the original work. Therefore, to avoid copyright issues with YouTube for your video, please avoid using key clips from the movie.
# Crop Footage
If you show the entire film in your video, you may also run into copyright issues. However, many creators have found that they can get around YouTube’s copyright warnings by cropping the movie clips to show only part of the screen, or by zooming in or out on the film screen.
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Best Sites for Public Domain Movies
Copyrighted movies can be difficult to use. However, you can use clips from copyright-free movies. In this section, I give you some websites with public-domain movies. These public-domain movies are not copyrighted and can be used by the public.
# 1. Public Domain Torrents
Website: publicdomaintorrents.info
Public Domain Torrents contains many copyright-free movies and public-domain cartoons, including some classics. The site divides the movies into different genres, such as action-adventure, animation, science fiction, etc. You can download all the movies on this site for free. Most of the films are available in AVI, iPod MP4, and PlayStation Portable MP4 formats.
# 2. Internet Archive
Website: archive.org
Internet Archive has millions of free texts, movies, software, music, websites, etc. You can search for the public domain movies you want by genre, year, etc. The copyright-free movies on this site can be downloaded directly or as torrents. It can be a great source of copyright-free TV shows, public-domain music, and movies.
# 3. Classic Cinema Online
Website: classiccinemaonline.com
Classic Cinema Online has collected many classic movies, including many copyright-free movies, TV shows, and public-domain cartoons. The website categorizes the movies according to themes such as comedy, documentary, musical, science fiction, family, etc. You can also search for the movies you want directly from the site’s search box.
Conclusion
After reading this article, you should know how to use non-copyrighted movie clips on YouTube. You can credit the movie clips, show a movie clip of up to 5 seconds, add commentary to the movie clips, avoid key scenes, or crop the footage from the movie. You can also use public-domain movies directly to avoid copyright infringement.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Mia loves music and art, and likes to listen to music alone in her spare time. Now, Mia is the English editor of MiniTool. She is good at writing YouTube tips, video conversion, and video recording. She is committed to bringing more multimedia knowledge to readers.