Copyright Match is a system that detects third-party copyrighted material within videos uploading to Vimeo. That material may include a musical recording, television program, or movie.

If a match is detected, and you wish to proceed with your upload, you must submit an appeal.

If you do not want to appeal, you may:

• Swap the audio in your video with a track from the Vimeo Music Store (if the third-party copyrighted work is music)
• Replace the video file
• Delete the video

Copyright Match is a technical solution to an artistic problem that affects many content-sharing services. Namely: we want people to be able to express themselves in the ways they see fit, but we also want to respect the boundaries of copyright law and the rights of other creators.

We want to foster a community where the best original videos can live, and we have always required that users only upload their own work. We don’t want rips of TV shows, movies, or viral videos found elsewhere on the Web. If you didn’t create a video yourself or secure rights to distribute it, we don’t want you to upload it to Vimeo. If your video merely reproduces someone else’s art without their permission, we don’t want you to upload it to Vimeo.

Those types of copyright-infringing content have always gone against our Community Guidelines , but we don’t—and can’t—review every video uploaded to our site (or anything close to that). And so the Copyright Match system has been lovingly crafted to flag videos that may infringe the copyrights of others before they (the videos) appear on Vimeo.

We greatly value artistic expression and freedom of speech, so we have built in several protections for creators who use copyrighted material in ways that don’t infringe the copyrights of others — including those cases when creators upload their own works!

​Copyright Match flags videos that contain copyrighted works, but it doesn’t tell us whether you had permission or whether your use might qualify as “fair use.” That’s why we built a robust and friendly appeal process: so that members have an opportunity to explain why their use of a copyrighted work isn’t infringing.

To appeal, go to the video page and click the link that says, "Review your options to complete your upload." (You also can click the link in the email we send to you when a match is detected.)

From there, you can tell us if one of the following situations applies:

• Your video does not contain the copyrighted material identified by Copyright Match.
• You have permission to use the material. 
• Your use of the material constitutes fair use under copyright law.

If you have permission or wish to claim fair use, you'll be asked to provide some additional information to support your claim.

Once your appeal is submitted, it will enter our review process and you’ll hear back soon.

“Fair use” allows for reuse of copyrighted materials without obtaining permission from the owner under certain circumstances.

​The law doesn’t provide clear-cut formulas for what type of content and how much of it you can use, but it does provide four factors that U.S. courts apply when making determinations.

If you want to claim fair use, you should first read these factors and use your appeal to explain why you think they support your claim. It’s important to recognize that this isn’t a simple checklist and that factors can be weighted differently in each case. Your appeal is more likely to be granted if you can provide a persuasive and thoughtful explanation as to how the four factors support a claim of fair use in your particular case.

Read through our Fair Use FAQ for more information.

When it comes to striking a deal with a copyright holder(s), permission can be given in a variety of forms but must be in writing. You might have a formal license from the copyright holder or something as simple as an email granting you permission. Whatever the form, the permission should clearly (1) identify the parties (i.e., the copyright holder and you); (2) the work being licensed; and (3) what you can do with the work.  Keep in mind that you might have permissions to do one thing with a work, but not another.  Also remember that you need to have permission from each relevant copyright owner.

In a Copyright Match appeal, you should tell us who licensed the work and describe the basic license terms.  The more information and evidence you can provide to support your claim, the more likely our moderators will accept your appeal.  Please note that if requested, you may need to provide a copy of your documentation. 

Because the Copyright Match system is designed to detect any copyrighted material, it may flag your own work and indicate that the copyright is held by a third party — even if that third party is you! While we wish this wouldn't happen to creators, it's an unavoidable side effect of protecting the copyrights of a large population of members and copyright holders.

If your own work is flagged, please submit an appeal and let us know that you are the copyright holder. We’ll sort this out for you ASAP!

If our moderators approve your appeal, your video will remain online.

Keep in mind that an approved appeal does not necessarily mean your video does not infringe on anyone's copyrights. It simply means that our moderators did not believe that a reasonable person would believe your video was infringing based upon the facts available to us.

There is still a chance that your video may be considered infringing by a third party that owns the copyright to the material used, and your video may be removed if the copyright holder chooses to issue a DMCA takedown notice.

If a DMCA notification is issued against your video, you have the option to file a counter-notification if you believe you're in the right and want to get your video back online.

If your appeal is denied, your video will be removed from Vimeo and will no longer be viewable.

If you believe that we made a mistake, or you would like to provide further evidence to support your appeal, you can respond to the email notification denying your appeal. One of our moderators will review your message and respond to you.

If you choose not to appeal the Copyright Match, the video will not be viewable. It will be permanently deleted from Vimeo after 90 days.

Copyright Match will find many instances of copyrighted works in videos, but it won’t catch them all. Whether or not Copyright Match flags your video, any use of someone else’s copyrighted material can still constitute infringement unless you’ve obtained permission or you’re covered by fair use.

You alone are responsible for making sure that all the videos you upload to Vimeo follow our guidelines and respect the copyrights of others.

To implement Copyright Match, we partnered with Audible Magic, a leading provider of content identification services.

We do not provide any of your personal information, or your videos, to Audible Magic.  Rather, we take an audio “fingerprint” of a sample of your video and pass along a digital file containing that fingerprint. Audible Magic then returns the results to us: whether or not there’s a potential match, and, if there is a match, the name of the copyrighted work in question. (This all happens in a matter of seconds, by the way.)

During this brisk exchange, neither Vimeo nor Audible Magic shares information about any match with a copyright holder. However, if you file an appeal regarding your use of a copyrighted work, we reserve the right to share some of the information from your appeal for purposes relating to rights enforcement.

We understand that many Plus and PRO members use Vimeo professionally and they need to privately share videos for temporary client review prior to obtaining formal licensing.

We are working on building support for this use case into the Copyright Match system. Until then, private videos uploaded by Plus and PRO members will not be scanned by Copyright Match.

If you’re using Vimeo for this purpose, make sure you default new uploads to private from your Global Video Settings or set your videos to private while they're uploading.