YouTube Copyright School is in Session, Attendance Required for Some

Posted 04/15/2011 at 6:57am | by Paul Lilly

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YouTube has a message for video uploaders who run afoul of copyright law: You better check yourself before you wreck yourself. To help offending users check themselves, anyone who receives a copyright notification for one of their videos will be required to attend "YouTube Copyright School." This entails watching a copyright tutorial video and taking a quiz afterwards to make sure you didn't simply hit 'play' while you head out to go smokin' in the boys room.

"Because copyright law can be complicated, education is critical to ensure that our users understand the rules and continue to play by them," YouTube stated in a blog post. "That’s why today we’re releasing a new tutorial on copyright and a redesigned copyright help center. We’re also making two changes to our copyright process to be sure that our users understand the rules, and that users who abide by those rules can remain active on the site."

You won't receive a diploma for graduating from YouTube's Copyright School, but "in certain limited circumstances," those with multiple strikes on their record could have them removed after passing the quiz. YouTube currently enforces a three strikes law, in which three violations leads to suspension.

"We’ve found that in some cases, a one-size-fits-all suspension rule doesn’t always lead to the right result. Consider, for example, a long-time YouTube user who received two copyright notifications four years ago but who’s uploaded thousands of legitimate videos since then without a further copyright notification," YouTube explains. "Until now, the four-year-old notifications would have stayed with the user forever despite a solid track record of good behavior, creating the risk that one new notification -- possibly even a fraudulent notification -- would result in the suspension of the account. We don’t think that’s reasonable. So, today we’ll begin removing copyright strikes from user’s accounts in certain limited circumstances, contingent upon the successful completion of YouTube Copyright School, as well as a solid demonstrated record of good behavior over time."

You can watch the 4m39s video and take the quiz here.