My YouTube video was freebooted.How do I find the copies?
Search your video's frames, not its title: upload it to Retrace and it lists the public pages carrying the same footage on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and the open web — where freebooted clips end up, usually under a new title. YouTube's own copyright systems stop at YouTube. Free scan. You only pay if we find something worth opening — you see the price first.
- Upload the full video: we sample frames across all of it, so a 40-second excerpt still matches.
- Finds Facebook pages, Shorts and TikTok accounts that cut your video down.
- Shows which moment of your video each copy took.
A link checks the first ~5 seconds. To check the whole video, upload the file.
a link covers the opening seconds; upload the file for the whole video
Not a real result — try your own video above ↑ unlock every page and the minute it took
Your long video in, every excerpt out.
Upload your master file
The video as you rendered it. Frames are taken from the whole runtime, so a copy of any segment can match.
We search outside YouTube too
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and the open web, in the same scan as YouTube itself.
See what was taken
Each copy shows the moment of your video it matched, so you can tell a full re-upload from a 30-second clip.
Check the video that went big, not the whole channel forever.
Freebooting follows views: it is the video that took off that gets lifted. Paying $7.00 every month to watch the rest of the catalogue makes little sense.
Search the videos that matter for $2.90 each when you unlock. Credit from a $2.90 top-up has no expiry date.
- Retrace
- $5.80
- Competitor (1 month)
- $7.00
- Competitor (1 year,
never cancelled) - $84.00
Hunting freebooted copies without paying.
Freebooters rename videos, but they sometimes keep words from the original. These free checks catch those:
1.Search Facebook in the Videos tab
Type your video's title, then a line you say in it, then your channel name. Freebooted copies often keep a translated or shortened version of the original title.
2.Search Google for your title in quotes
Add
facebook.comortiktok.comto the query, then try without them. Content farms that reupload videos often leave the original title in the page.
The gap in all of this: a Facebook copy with a clickbait title, no mention of you, and a different opening. That is the typical freebooted upload, and words cannot find it.
Matching the footage, off YouTube.
Retrace starts from your file, not your title. It picks up to 24 distinctive frames spread over the whole video, searches each, and lists every public page where your frames reappear, grouped by page. A page whose thumbnail aligns frame by frame is marked confirmed.
Because each row shows the moment of your video that matched, you can see at a glance whether a Facebook page took the whole thing or a two-minute highlight — which is also what a takedown form asks you to describe.
Scanning is free. Unlocking the URLs costs $2.90, and the earliest appearance found is flagged when the pages carry a date.
What it will miss.
Freebooted copies hide in a few places no outside search reaches:
Closed groups and private pages
A video shared inside a private Facebook group or a private account is not visible to search engines.
Copies taken down already
Removed or deleted posts are gone unless someone mirrored them.
The newest uploads
A copy from the last few days may not be indexed. Run the search again later.
Reaction and commentary edits
When your video is a small window inside someone else's frame, the match is much weaker.
Decisions about fair use
Whether a commentary or reaction video is allowed is a legal question. We only show where the footage is.
Where to go next.
- Facebook: copyright report — For a copy on Facebook, use the copyright report form in the Facebook Help Center (search “copyright report” under Intellectual Property).
- YouTube: submit a copyright removal request — For copies on other YouTube channels.
Straight answers.
Start with the free scan; it tells you how many pages and which platforms carry your footage.
Find freebooted copies →What is freebooting?
Freebooting is downloading someone's video, usually from YouTube, and uploading it as a native video on another platform or channel, most often Facebook. The copy collects the views and the creator gets no link, no credit and no revenue.
Does YouTube's Copyright Match Tool find copies on Facebook?
No. It looks for re-uploads on YouTube only, and it is available to channels in the YouTube Partner Program. Content ID is also limited to YouTube. Retrace searches Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X and the open web in the same scan.
How do I find my YouTube video on Facebook?
Upload the video to Retrace: it matches the footage instead of the words, so it finds Facebook copies with new titles. Searching Facebook for your title only finds the copies that kept it.
The copy is only a short part of my video. Will it match?
Usually, if the excerpt includes moments that were sampled. Upload the full file so frames come from the whole runtime; each result tells you the moment of your video it matched.
Can I get the views or the money from the copy?
Retrace does not handle that. Some platforms let rights holders claim or block matching uploads through their own rights-management programmes; otherwise the usual route is a copyright takedown on each copy.