Creators making YouTube Shorts will now be able to use video clips from billions of YouTube videos in new Shorts, the company announced today in a blog post.
YouTube Shorts now allows creators to splice in long-form videos
Creators can use clips from YouTube’s billions of videos in their own content
Creators can use clips from YouTube’s billions of videos in their own content
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
is features writer with five years of experience covering the companies that shape technology and the people who use their tools.
In YouTube Shorts — the company’s TikTok clone — creators were previously only able to splice short audio clips from other videos on the platform. This most recent update will allow users to clip 1- to 5-second segments from eligible long-form videos and Shorts to use in new short-form content.
When a new Short is created with a clip from an existing video, the original video is credited via a link. The library of videos available for remixing is vast, though creators have the option to exclude their content from being remixed, and videos with a copyright claim or set to private can’t be sampled. The video remixing feature is rolling out to iOS users in the coming weeks, with Android following later this year.
Expanding remixing on YouTube Shorts is the company’s answer to popular TikTok features like Stitch and viral audio-based trends. But opening up YouTube’s library of billions of videos for reuse is a significant step — and could allow creators to profit if their original content starts a viral trend or is remixed extensively by others.
YouTube also announced today that Shorts are now accessible via web and tablets, with a new Shorts tab appearing across devices over the next few weeks.
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