How to get permission to clip someone's videos (with templates)

Only the person or company that owns the footage can say yes. The U.S. Copyright Office's answer to “How do I get permission to use somebody else's work?” is short: you ask for it, and if you know who the owner is, you contact them directly. For clippers, that's usually one of these:

• The creator, for most YouTube channels, streams and independent podcasts.
• A company behind them: a network that produces a show, a studio, a record label, or a brand that paid for a video. The creator can tell you if that's the case.
• Another show, when the creator was a guest on it. That footage is usually the host show's, so ask the show as well.

Ownership can be split, too. YouTube's own list of copyright myths notes that an owner may allow some of their content but not all of it, and that one owner may give permission where another doesn't. Guests, clips of TV or other videos shown on screen, and music playing in the background can all belong to someone else (more on that below).

Why a “go for it” in the comments is weak proof: you can't show who wrote it (a moderator, an editor or a fan account can reply too), it says nothing about which videos, apps or money, and it can be deleted tomorrow. A reply from the creator's business email, or a message that spells out what you asked, is something you can point to.

This guide is practical help with asking, not legal advice. The law behind it (copyright, fair use, what happens without permission) is in is clipping legal?

“Can I clip you?” gets you a yes that means different things to each of you. Ask for the specifics up front, in one message, so the answer covers what you'll actually do:

Ask the money question even if the answer might be no. Earning from someone's footage when they only agreed to clips is how a friendly yes turns into a takedown.

Go to the address the creator reads business email on, not the busiest inbox they have:

• YouTube. Open the channel, click its description to open the About section, and choose View email address. YouTube says you can see it only if the owner has added one. It's the address they read business email on, which is what this is.
• Twitch. Look at the channel's About section and the panels under the stream, where streamers often list a business email or their management.
• A management or brand-deal email. Bigger creators list one in their bio or link page. The people who handle sponsors usually handle rights too, or know who does.
• The creator's site or the show's. Podcasts usually have a contact page, and show notes often name the producer or network.
• Their community. If a creator runs a Discord with a clips channel, the rules or the moderators will often say whether clips are welcome and who to ask.
• A DM, last. Big creators may never open it, and a reply from a team member is fine only if they confirm they can give permission.

Send one message to one contact. If there's no answer after a week, follow up once, or try a second contact once. Then move on.

Short, polite and specific works best. Fill in the brackets, cut what doesn't apply, and send it from the account you'll post the clips on, so they can see your work.

Use the third one whenever a yes came on a call, in a voice note, or as one word under a vague question. To point at the exact moments you'd clip, the free YouTube clip maker makes a link that plays just that part of a video.

You don't always have to ask one creator at a time:

• Clipping programs and campaigns. When a creator or brand pays clippers, the campaign's rules are your permission: the videos, apps and post requirements it sets. Clips outside them aren't covered. The clipping programs page lists which creators pay clippers; how to find clipping campaigns covers the marketplaces, and what is clipping? the idea.
• Creators who say publicly that clipping is fine. Save the post (its link and a screenshot with the date) and read its exact words: whose accounts, which content, and whether money is mentioned. One example from our creator pages: GaryVee's 2019 invite asked editors to make clips and submit them for his own account, unpaid; it wasn't a license to post them on yours (his page). Statements change, so check again before each batch.
• YouTube's Content ID allowlist. Content ID is for copyright owners who meet YouTube's criteria, including exclusive rights to a large body of original material that's often uploaded. An owner who uses it can add your channel to their allowlist in Studio Content Manager, and Content ID won't claim videos uploaded to your channel from then on. Claims made before aren't released automatically, and if several partners own the footage, each one has to add you. YouTube gives the same advice to streamers who license someone else's content: ask the owner to allowlist your channel. If your yes comes from a network or a label, ask whether they use Content ID, and if they do, ask to be added.

A creator's yes settles their part. Three things it doesn't touch:

• The apps' originality rules. YouTube's reused content policy, which decides whether a channel can earn from ads, applies even if you have permission from the original creator: it isn't based on copyright or permission, and it looks for significant original commentary, substantive modifications, or educational or entertainment value. TikTok and Facebook have their own rules on unoriginal content. Details in YouTube's reused content policy, TikTok's unoriginal content rules and Facebook's unoriginal content policy.
• Music in the background. YouTube says that if a recording includes someone else's music playing in the background, you need permission from that music's owner. A creator's license for a song may not reach your clip, so ask, or pick moments without it.
• Other people in the video. A clip of a TV show, a film or another creator's video playing on screen isn't the creator's to give. Guests are a question of their own: a guest may have agreed to appear on terms you don't know, so ask whether clips of guests are fine. And while appearing in a video doesn't make someone its copyright owner, YouTube notes that people can file a privacy complaint about a video of them posted without their permission. Leave out bystanders and private moments.

Paid clips have one more duty: an ad disclosure, covered in why campaigns reject clips.

Keep the permission where you can find it in a year: the email itself, or a screenshot of the messages that shows the account name, what you asked, the answer and the date. Save the creator's public post the same way. Keep a list of the clips you've posted under it.

Here's why it matters. If a clip is claimed on YouTube, having all the necessary rights to the content is a valid reason to dispute, but YouTube can't make ownership decisions: it doesn't know what was licensed, so the claimant reviews your dispute. The email you saved is what you describe in your dispute, and what you forward to the creator so they can release the claim or ask whoever made it to.

No reply means no. Silence isn't permission, and neither is “I'll post until they tell me to stop.” Follow up once, try one other contact, then clip someone who runs a program instead. And if a creator takes their yes back, stop clipping them and take down what they ask you to.

With a yes in hand, the work is the clips. Paste the creator's YouTube link into Clyper, or upload the file they sent: it finds the moments that stand on their own, cuts each on whole sentences, frames it 9:16 on whoever's talking and captions every word. Up to 30 clips from one video, ranked by hook score. Trim either end or fix a caption word in the editor before you download.

• Credit them the way they asked, in every post. Check a caption with the credit, tags and any disclosure fits with the social media character counter.
• Stay inside what you agreed: the videos, the apps, the edits and the money. A new idea (another app, ads, a compilation) is a new ask.
• Pick the right source: long YouTube videos (YouTube to Shorts), podcasts (podcast clips) or streams (stream clips).

Clipping for creators as a paid job rather than for your own page? That's in clipping jobs and how to get clipping clients.