If you’re only cross-posting your Shorts to TikTok or Instagram Reels, YouTube wants everyone to know. A Team YouTube member reported that the website has begun putting watermarks on Shorts downloaded from its Studio portal for creators in an update to its community support centre. In the upcoming weeks, YouTube will begin watermarking your desktop-created Shorts before extending it to mobile in the upcoming months.
Other online companies soon created other products to compete with TikTok after realising that short-form videos had captured the attention of the younger population. However, if you spend some time watching videos on various websites and apps, you’ll quickly see that many Instagram Reels and TikTok films are just reposted by the same producers.
The watermarking of Shorts, according to the Google-owned website, would allow viewers to “viewers can see that the content [the user is] sharing across platforms can be found on YouTube Shorts.” It sounds like it’s hoping the new feature will make you aware that it also hosts short-form films, entice you to give it a try, and convince you to choose it over its rivals.
Previous to rolling out the short-form video format in 100 additional countries last year, YouTube initially introduced it in India in 2020. It set aside $100 million a few months later to begin paying Shorts creators. In comparison to TikTok’s claim that it surpassed 1 billion monthly active users in September 2021, YouTube estimates that Shorts will have 1.5 billion active, signed-in users by the end of June this year.