Be Careful with the Videos You Upload to Facebook! “Your video was removed because it appears to contain copyrighted material owned by a third party. If you think that we’ve removed this video by mistake, you can file a counter-notice by following the link provided in the warning email.”
If you have never received one of these Emails/Notifications from Facebook, consider yourself lucky.
Is it yours?
Social media videos are becoming more and more popular. A lot of YouTube stars have turned to other social networks as well. Their high-performing videos, mixed with professional content, means it was only a matter of time before other social networks implemented a copyright-scanning feature. Every video that is posted on social media is pre-scanned and checked for any infringing content before the video shows up on your Timeline or Newsfeed. If the video you’re posting contains any infringing content, it won’t be published and you will receive a warning.
The pre-scanning is focuses mostly on the audio part of the video. That means if your video contains music that belongs to someone you did not get permission from, your video won’t get published. In a few words, if your video has a song you did not create as its background music, don’t bother posting it.
A lot of content creators don’t solely rely on social networks’ copyright-scanner. They watermark their videos, to protect even more their digital content. This is a clear indication that you should not risk and use their videos without permission.
Publer’s Platform Video PresentationIf you want to protect your digital content, you can automatically watermark your social media videos using Publer. No editing skills required!
Credits and Recognitions
Back to videos that may get you in trouble. Even if your video does not contain any music, it doesn’t end here. Anyone is able to report content that they believe violates or infringes on their copyright. Facebook takes these reports very seriously. For example, let’s say you found a funny video on the Internet and decided to upload it to your Page. Let’s suppose that it became viral. Some day or another the person that created it sees the video you uploaded. He notices that no one credited or mentioned the source. He reports your video to Facebook.
If he proves to Facebook that he holds all the rights to that video, Facebook will take your video down and send you a warning. Unfortunately, there’s no way for you to know if a video is copyright protected or not unless you seek legal advice.
Besides making sure the video you’re posting is not copyrighted, you also need to make sure it follows the Community Standards. If someone reports your video for breaking social networks’ Policies, they will take your video down and give you a warning.
They Caught me! What now?
Let’s take as an example: Facebook.
First of all, Facebook will remove the video you uploaded. They will also send you a warning. Is this your first time? Then the warning will simply ask you to not do it again. If you repeatedly infringe someone’s copyright or upload videos that don’t follow the Facebook Community Standards, Facebook will ban your account from posting videos. Depending on its severeness the ban may be temporarily (up to 30 days) or permanently. If you keep uploading copyrighted videos or videos that don’t follow the Facebook Community Standards on a Fan Page, Facebook may unpublish that Page.
What Videos Shouldn’t I Upload
- Music videos & TV shows: definitely NO. They won’t even pass Facebook’s pre-scan.
- Pranks: a big NO. People that do pranks, do that for a living and they won’t allow you to use their work without their permission.
- Celebrity videos: another NO. Celebrities sign contracts with companies to allow them to use their image.
- Food, recipes and other arts & crafts videos: sadly NO. Again, they do that for a living.
- Videos that don’t follow the Facebook Community Standards
So What Can I Upload Then
Home videos, cute animal videos, videos that don’t have any watermarks, or simply get creative and create your own video. If you decide to upload a video that you think has a copyright or that might get you in trouble, try citing the source or give credit to the owner. Even in that case we cannot guarantee that they won’t report it.
Disclaimer of Be Careful with the Videos You Upload to Facebook
Use these guidelines at your own risk. We don’t guarantee that these guidelines will keep you safe. Also, we are not a Facebook affiliate, so we don’t take any responsibility for anything that might happen. These guidelines are simply here to help you minimize Facebook Policies and copyrights violations based on research we conducted.
You can also take advantage of Publer’s new Superpower: AutoDeletion of Posts. Do you think this is a copyrighted Video or goes against Facebook Community Standards? Post that Video for a short time only (i.e. 1 or 2 days) using Publer.