Best practices for claims

These features are only available to partners who use YouTube Studio Content Manager.

If you’re using Content ID to manage your content, you must adhere to its policies, which include restrictions on what content you can claim.

Incorrectly claiming content that you don't own can cause issues for YouTube creators and hurt your reputation in the YouTube community.

A claim asserts ownership of a video's content. Abusive or fraudulent claims may result in penalties including legal liability and termination of partnership.

Use the best practices listed below to help avoid or fix common issues with claims:

 Avoid overclaiming

Make sure you understand what kind of content is eligible for Content ID so that you avoid overclaiming.

Also, you can use the following features as needed to avoid overclaiming:

• Reference exclusions: Exclude portions of reference files you don't own.
• Custom match policies: Set minimum thresholds or other parameters.
• Manual review: Route certain thresholds or claim types to manual review.

 Review your disputed and appealed claims

Reviewing disputed and appealed claims is one of the quickest ways to identify problems with claims. Learn how to take action on claim issues, such as releasing disputed claims.

Keep in mind that taking action on a single claim won't necessarily prevent future issues. Make sure you also review the policy associated with the claim and edit the policy if necessary.

 Address claim issues with top performing assets

Reviewing your top performing assets for claim issues helps you make the most impact in your cleanup effort.

In Studio Content Manager, on the Assets  page, you can sort assets by the number of claimed videos, then click a top performing asset. On the Asset detail page, you can:

• Click Issues  to view any claim issues associated with the asset, such as disputed claims.
• Click Claimed videos  to confirm you have 100% exclusive rights to the claimed content in these videos.

If all claims are incorrect, deactivate the reference and release all claims on the reference. If some claims are incorrect, release the incorrect claims and take the appropriate steps to prevent future incorrect claims.

 Check your top claimed videos

In Studio Content Manager, you can review your top claimed videos from the Claimed Videos page. To sort by the number of views, click the column header Total under the Views section.

You can also click the filter bar and apply filters like Claim Status Active claim and Origin Upload, Audio Match, and Video Match. Applying these filters will let you focus on user-uploaded videos with at least one active claim.

Keep in mind that taking action on a single claimed video won't necessarily prevent future issues. Make sure you also review the policy applied to the claimed video and edit the policy if necessary.

 Use advanced filters to recognize patterns

Studio Content Manager has several advanced filters to help you recognize underlying patterns of problems. You can filter by asset type if you suspect only certain kinds of assets are causing most of your claim issues.

You can also filter by claim status and origin to find out whether, for example, only video matches are causing issues. Experiment with the filters to isolate problems and identify patterns.

Example scenarios:

• You notice incorrect claims seem to be originating from a specific channel.
  • Potential solution: Try removing that channel’s ability to create reference files.
• You notice incorrect claims seem to be originating from a specific show.
  • Potential solution: Try setting up a custom policy for that show.
• You notice incorrect claims seem to be originating from a specific part of your library.
  • Potential solution: Try turning off Content ID matching for that content.

 Deactivate your reference files

If most of the claims a reference file makes are incorrect, deactivate the reference for easy cleanup.

Don’t forget to release all claims on the user-uploaded videos associated with the reference, too.