If you want to upload content on YouTube, it is important that you know what your license options are. A standard license basically means that you give the broadcasting rights for your content to YouTube exclusively. You will still retain control over your videos as intellectual property, but they cannot be broadcasted on any other medium.

  1. Go into the Advanced Settings When Uploading your Video

When you upload a video on YouTube for the first time, you should go into the Advanced settings to see what your options are. Just select the tab on the far right at the top of the screen before publishing your content.

  1. Select License and Rights Ownership

When you click the drop-down list under “License and Rights Ownership”, you will see a few different options appear. The first option will be “Standard YouTube License”. This is the default setting for all the videos that you upload on this site. With this type of license, everybody can watch your video, but nobody can download or redistribute it in any way.

  1. Consider the Creative Commons License Option

In the drop-down list for License and Rights Ownership, you will also see the Creative Commons License option. This type of license gives you and everyone else expressed permission to edit and redistribute any of your own videos. It is also known as a CC license, this option is worth considering. Just keep in mind that you are essentially giving everyone on YouTube permission to edit your videos and do what they want with them. You can only select this option if your video is not copyright protected by any other person or company. There are some other eligibility requirements that you should look into.

  1. Changing your License After Publishing

You can change the licensing for any of your videos after you have already uploaded them. If you want to change a video from Creative Commons to a Standard YouTube License, you can do it very easily. First, go to the YouTube dashboard and select “My Channel”. Then, go to “Video Manager”. Click on “Videos” and select the video that you want to change the license for. Navigate to “Advanced Settings” and choose the Standard YouTube License option from the drop-down list.

TIPS:

  • Make sure that you take some time to think about which type of license you want to use for your YouTube videos. If you want to monetize your channel, it might be a good idea to use the Standard YouTube license. All of your videos will automatically use this license by default when you publish them on this site.
  • It is okay for you to share Standard YouTube License videos with your friends and family over social media.
  • If a media company wants to use your Standard License YouTube video for any reason, they will contact you for permission. You don’t absolutely need to grant this permission if you don’t want to.