YouTube has recently expanded its short form TikTok-like platform, YouTube Shorts, so that creators can now include visual snippets from public YouTube videos as part of their content.
This added feature has been likened to the Stitch function on TikTok, where users can natively clip other videos into their own creations, adding to the popular audio-only Duet feature. Last year, YouTube added the ability to remix creators’ audio into your own Shorts, meaning the recent inclusion of video follows the trend set by TikTok. Much like the popular TikTok features, YouTube’s additions function in an almost identical way, right down to the maximum five-second clip limitation.
Available soon for YouTube iOS users and Android later in the year, you’ll be able to include clips of other videos in Shorts by following a similar method to sampling audio. Once you find a publicly-listed YouTube video you want to include, tap Create below the video’s title followed by Cut, which lets you choose the section you want. For Shorts you want to remix, tap the three dots and then Cut. Like TikTok, remixed videos will be credited in the end result so viewers can check out the source.
However, there are some safeguards to prevent anyone’s content from being remixed. YouTube creators can opt out of having their regular videos sampled by disabling the feature within YouTube Studio. Shorts, on the other hand, do not currently have the same opt-out capacity as the longer-form videos. Instead, if you do not want someone sampling a Short you’ve made, the only current option is deletion, which then removes it from any content that sampled it.
It’s not surprising YouTube is continuing to follow the trends set by TikTok. The latter’s popularity among younger demographics is envied by other platforms, as seen by Instagram adding Reels in recent years, followed by YouTube Shorts. One area YouTube will need to catch up on is its opt-out settings; TikTok users can opt-out of sampling on a per-video basis, while YouTube only offers this for standard videos, not Shorts, bizarrely enough.
Great article! It’s great to see how YouTube is embracing the power of TikTok-style videos with Shorts. Looking forward to seeing how this will impact the future of digital content creation!