Is it legal to repost someone else's video?

What you are actually doing when you cut a clip

A copyright owner holds a short list of exclusive rights. In the United States they sit in 17 U.S.C. §106.

Downloading the file copies it. Posting the clip distributes it. Trimming and captioning it makes a derivative work.

One repost can touch three of those rights at once. That is why platforms act on it so quickly.

The four bases that do work

Every legitimate clip traces back to one of four sources of permission. ViralFoundry will not produce a Clip Sheet until you name which.

• Campaign licence. A creator running a paid clipping campaign grants clippers a limited licence. The brief is the licence.
• CC-BY. The owner licensed reuse in advance, on condition you attribute correctly.
• Public domain. Copyright has expired or never applied.
• Own content. You recorded it, or your client did, and nobody else's material is inside it.

What happens when you skip it

On YouTube, an automated Content ID claim moves the money to the rights holder. A strike is worse and can end the channel.

On TikTok and Instagram the audio gets muted or the post disappears. Repeat infringement closes accounts.

Inside a campaign, an unlicensed source is a disqualified submission. You did the work and get nothing.

The part people underrate

A clipper's business is their accounts. Losing three of them to strikes ends the income, not just the clip.

Keeping a written record of the basis for each clip costs seconds. It is the cheapest insurance in this job.