How to Legally create Compilation Videos?

None of what is said in this thread should by taken as legal advice! I'm not a lawyer and I don't know what I'm talking about.

Good day everyone
So the answer to my question might seem quite simple to everyone who lives in the US since yall have fair use laws. Just make it transformative, right?

Well, but what about countries that don't have a fair use law? Germany for example, the only cases in which you are allowed to use someone else's content without their permission is when you want to critize or quote it (if you are a News-Channel for example). So no matter how much editing you put into your video and how transformative you make it, you still can get sued.

So what can you do to avoid that? An idea I had:

So let's say you have a Fortnite Compilation Channel. You start the video with a short introduction of what this video is about etc. (just like a news channel would do it) and when you then show your first clip you briefly explain what happens in there ("So in our first clip we got some guy falling down a cliff but he actually managed to kill someone while falling") and then you show the clip. Now you repeat that with every clip. Do you guys think this would fall under the so called "Zitatrecht" (quote law)?

But then again, even if someone would try to sue you, how is he gonna find out who you are if you´re just a compilation channel and never gave out any private data? Because some big movie company actually tried to sue someone for uploading their movie on Youtube without their permission and all that YouTube gave out was, as far as I´m concerned, the Name of the YouTube Channel and all the information they used to create their YouTube Channel (which is basically just their Channel name, since you don´t give YouTube your address information, you only use your address information in the E-Mail creation process), so nothing that could have potentially helped that movie company to sue whoever owned that channel. Now let´s say you would connect your Adsense account with your Youtube account. Since Adsense is not owned by Youtube they shouldn´t need to give out the information you used to create your Adsense account, right?

Please let me know your thoughts and what wrong assumptions I have made. Thanks!

Well I think you are too scary in my opinion. You can’t compare movies on youtube with fair use videos. If someone is uploading whole films it’s obviously retarded idea but if you just upload other’s video nobody will sue with you trust me. All you can get is copyright strike. I would be really surprised if someone tried to sue you for using us 15 sec video of playing fortnite lol. I had one compilation channel 4 years ago and I got 3 strikes during night (so I couldn’t even deal with it) and when I woke up my channel was deleted. There was no option to solve it. That channel made me 5000 dollars per month. Lately I noticed that claims came from other channel in my niche that I extremely overgrowth in few months so he decided to shutdown my channel. He just striked 6 clips in my fews videos that its him in that video and he didn’t gave me permissons. Yea it’s easy as that. Youtube is so sad in this. They will gave you strike first and then you can prove its your content or it’s fair use instead of taking report - ask you for prove licence and only after that if you dont prove it just delete video. If someone time it good they just can shutdown your video easily.

Also, depending on your country, Youtube (actually google) wont even answer to anyone without a court in the us forcing them to answer.

Got sued last year for scamming / carding shops and google didnt even answer to the court in germany, making it Impossible to sue me without any proof (ip adresses / gmail account). So i got a acquittal.

Google only cares if its a serious crime. Otherwise they do not give out any info. In cases of seriouse crimes, a judge in the us may force Google to give out all infos.

All infos includes:

IP Adresses used on all Services
Adresses and Names on all Services

Cardaish said:

Well I think you are too scary in my opinion. You can’t compare movies on youtube with fair use videos. If someone is uploading whole films it’s obviously retarded idea but if you just upload other’s video nobody will sue with you trust me. All you can get is copyright strike. I would be really surprised if someone tried to sue you for using us 15 sec video of playing fortnite lol. I had one compilation channel 4 years ago and I got 3 strikes during night (so I couldn’t even deal with it) and when I woke up my channel was deleted. There was no option to solve it. That channel made me 5000 dollars per month. Lately I noticed that claims came from other channel in my niche that I extremely overgrowth in few months so he decided to shutdown my channel. He just striked 6 clips in my fews videos that its him in that video and he didn’t gave me permissons. Yea it’s easy as that. Youtube is so sad in this. They will gave you strike first and then you can prove its your content or it’s fair use instead of taking report - ask you for prove licence and only after that if you dont prove it just delete video. If someone time it good they just can shutdown your video easily.

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"Nothing to do"
Well, if strikes are false you can just proceed the strikes in the court. He will be forced to argue how he owns the content in court, which would be a loss with A LOT of costs.

no one is going to sue you for making a compilation channel, you'll probably get claimed but that's not a big deal. you might get a strike but probably not. people know that if they sue some guy in Vietnam for making $100 off a youtube video they will bring the hatred of the entire internet down on them. plus since YT already has a system for copyright disputes it would probably just annoy the judge. dumb commentary is not going to fly as fair use but it doesn't really matter.

uploading an entire movie is a different matter entirely

Thanks to you all for your answers, and although they indeed made me less scared of possibly getting sued, there is still a slim chance of it happening. So does anyone have any idea at all how to possibly create these compilation videos in a way in which a court would decide that I have not broken any laws?

Soo short answer, yes you can legally monetize compilations.

How? Thats the "long term" answer.
You have to make sure that your video compilations are under "fair use" policy.
There are a lot of variables you have to understand and apply in the videos (example: clips with between 15-30sec max, you HAVE to add comentary, effects etc)

Brief example: Fortnite highlight channels, if you check the 3 biggest ones, they notorious do what I have said above.
I advice you to search about fair use on youtube.

Personal advice: There is a probability of making all that and not being accepted to youtube partner program, so try put a few videos and apply first, then you start making those compilations.
If done right, you can make a lot of money.

anotherjarveeuser said:

Soo short answer, yes you can legally monetize compilations.

How? Thats the "long term" answer.
You have to make sure that your video compilations are under "fair use" policy.
There are a lot of variables you have to understand and apply in the videos (example: clips with between 15-30sec max, you HAVE to add comentary, effects etc)

Brief example: Fortnite highlight channels, if you check the 3 biggest ones, they notorious do what I have said above.
I advice you to search about fair use on youtube.

Personal advice: There is a probability of making all that and not being accepted to youtube partner program, so try put a few videos and apply first, then you start making those compilations.
If done right, you can make a lot of money.

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What if there is no fair use law in your country?

SocialRocket said:

What if there is no fair use law in your country?

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wordwide copyright convention

Even tho it sounds like a loophole, I wouldn't risk this. Better make genuine content.

look here - https://www.youtube.com/howyoutubeworks/policies/copyright/
here - https://www.youtube.com/howyoutubeworks/policies/copyright/#fair-use
here - https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9783148?hl=en
They have cool video to explain and show fair use, I have seen channels that use popular shows but take bits and pieces from the show, funniest parts, Best talent acts from America's Got Talent compilations you can't do ads in the vids but you can do other things to monetize the traffic if you think smart...

dont risk maybe this way is illegal