How do you find out if someone reposted your video?
Start where the copy most likely lives. If you publish on YouTube, the Copyright Match Tool in YouTube Studio scans new uploads for full or near-full copies of your videos and lists them for you; it is free and it runs on its own. If the copy could be anywhere, take three or four distinctive frames from your video and put each through a reverse image search such as Google Lens or TinEye; a repost on a web page or a thumbnail will often surface. For clips that were trimmed, cropped, re-encoded or captioned, frame search misses and you need a video fingerprint search, which matches the video itself rather than a still. And when you find a copy, the fix is a takedown request to the platform hosting it, which every major platform accepts and most act on within days.
Which method should I use?
| Method | What it catches | Cost | Time | Main limitation |
| YouTube Copyright Match Tool | Full and near-full re-uploads on YouTube | Free | Automatic, results in YouTube Studio | YouTube only, and only for channels that have access to the tool |
| Reverse image search on frames (Google Lens, TinEye) | Copies on web pages and thumbnails that kept the frame intact | Free | 10 to 20 minutes for a few frames | Misses trimmed, cropped, mirrored or re-encoded clips; one frame at a time |
| Video fingerprint search | Clips cut from your video, re-encoded, cropped or captioned, with the matching timestamp | Free open source, or a per-video fee | Seconds per query once your videos are indexed | Only finds copies in what the index has crawled or you have supplied |
| Paid monitoring service | Continuous scanning plus takedown handling | Monthly fee, usually quote-based | Ongoing | Cost, and coverage that varies by platform |
| Manual searching | Reposts with your title or handle still attached | Free | Hours | Misses everything that was renamed |
Why is a reposted video hard to find?
A copied text article is easy to find because search engines index text. A copied video is opaque to them: the file is pixels and audio, and the title, description and handle are whatever the reposter typed. Reposters also change the file on purpose or by accident. A clip cut from the middle, a crop to a vertical frame, a speed change, a mirror flip, a caption bar, a watermark, or a re-encode by the platform all produce a file that no longer matches yours byte for byte, so a checksum finds nothing.
That is why the methods above differ in what they catch. Title search catches the lazy reposter. Frame search catches the copy that kept a whole frame intact. Fingerprint search catches the copy that changed everything but the content, because a video fingerprint describes what happens in the frames over time rather than the exact pixels.
Can YouTube tell me when someone re-uploads my video?
Yes, if you have the Copyright Match Tool. It compares new uploads against your channel's videos and lists matches under Copyright in YouTube Studio, where you can request removal, ask the uploader to take it down, or archive the match. Access depends on your channel's standing with YouTube; check the Copyright Match Tool help page for the current eligibility rules. It only sees YouTube, and it looks for full or near-full copies, so a ten second clip inside someone else's compilation may not be flagged.
Content ID is a separate, larger system for rights holders with substantial catalogs. It is not something an individual creator applies to a handful of videos.
How do I reverse image search a video?
Pick frames that are distinctive: a face, a title card, a product shot, a recognizable location. Screenshot each at full resolution and search it on Google Lens and TinEye. A match on a web page often shows the reposting site directly; a match on a thumbnail leads you to the video.
Expect misses. Frame search compares a still against an index of stills, so it does not see a clip that was cropped to vertical, mirrored, or re-encoded with a caption bar across the frame you chose. Try several frames before concluding there is no copy, and read the reverse video search guide for how the video-level version of this works and what Google does and does not offer.
How does video fingerprint search find a trimmed or cropped copy?
A video fingerprint is a compact signature computed from the content of the frames over time, designed so that two videos that show the same thing produce similar signatures even after re-encoding, cropping, mirroring or trimming. Searching means computing the signature of your video and comparing it against an index of signatures of other videos; a match returns which video and at which timestamp.
Two open source implementations are worth knowing. Meta's TMK+PDQF, published in the ThreatExchange repository, produces a fixed-length signature per video and is built for whole-video matching. Its sibling vPDQ hashes frames individually so a short clip can be matched inside a longer video. Both are free, and both require you to build and maintain the index yourself.
Hosted services do the same job without the infrastructure. Mixpeek indexes videos from the storage you already use and answers a query video with every match and its timestamp; the reverse video search page walks through the three API calls, and how reverse video search works explains the fingerprinting and matching underneath. Pricing for hosted options is in best reverse video search tools.
The limitation is the same for every fingerprint system: it can only match against videos it has seen. A copy on a platform nobody has indexed stays invisible, which is why platform tools and fingerprint search complement each other.
What do I do when I find a copy of my video?
1. Save evidence: the URL, the upload date, a screenshot, and the timestamps that match your original. 2. Decide whether it is a problem. A reaction video, a clip under a commentary, or a share with credit may be something you want; a full re-upload monetized by someone else is not. 3. Use the platform's copyright form. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and the others each have one, and each accepts a claim from the rights holder. On YouTube the Copyright Match Tool lets you request removal directly from the match. 4. For sites without a form, send a DMCA takedown notice to the host or its designated agent. The U.S. Copyright Office describes the notice requirements and keeps the directory of designated agents. 5. Keep a record of what you sent and when. Repeat infringers are handled differently by platforms, and your history is the evidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a free way to find where my video has been reposted?
Yes, two. If you publish on YouTube, the Copyright Match Tool scans uploads for copies of your videos at no cost. For anywhere else, screenshot a few distinctive frames and run them through Google Lens and TinEye. Both are free and take minutes. Neither catches a copy that was trimmed, cropped or re-encoded past recognition; that needs fingerprint search.
Can Google reverse search a video?
Not the video itself. Google Lens searches a single image, so the working method is to search individual frames. There is no public Google product that takes a video file and returns other videos containing it. The reverse video search guide covers what does exist.
Will a reposter changing the speed, cropping or adding captions defeat detection?
It defeats byte-level checks and often defeats frame search. It does not defeat a video fingerprint, which describes what happens across frames over time and is designed to survive re-encoding, cropping, mirroring and trimming. A speed change shifts timing and is the hardest of these; modern fingerprints tolerate modest changes.
Does a copyright claim remove the video?
On YouTube a removal request through the Copyright Match Tool or the webform takes the video down if YouTube accepts the claim, and the uploader receives a strike. Other platforms follow their own copyright policies, linked from their help centers. A DMCA notice to a host outside the platforms obliges the host to act if it wants to keep its safe harbor.
How can I monitor for reposts continuously instead of searching by hand?
Index your own catalog once and run new candidates against it. Platform tools do this for you inside their walls. For the open web you either build on an open source fingerprint such as TMK+PDQF, or use a hosted service that indexes your videos and matches new ones as they appear. Which one fits depends on how many videos you have and where the copies tend to show up; best copyright detection tools compares the options.
Related
Sources: YouTube Help, Copyright Match Tool and submit a copyright removal request; Google Lens; TinEye; U.S. Copyright Office, DMCA; Meta ThreatExchange, TMK+PDQF.