Keep three checks separate.
A license answers what an agreement allows you to use. Original contribution concerns what you made from the materials. Disclosure tells the viewer about relevant generation or alteration. Passing one check does not automatically settle the other two.
YouTube’s channel monetization policies, checked 9 September 2026, consider originality and authenticity. The reused-content review is separate from copyright permission: permission alone does not establish that a channel meets the monetization requirements. Treat the examples in the lab as a way to identify questions, not as predictions of a review outcome.
Describe the work a viewer receives.
Write one sentence naming your contribution: an analysis, a documented comparison, a researched explanation, a new narrative or another specific editorial addition. “I used an AI tool” describes a process. It does not describe what the viewer learned from your finished work.
Keep the script drafts, source notes, edit timeline and narration files. These records help you explain how the video was made and recover the work later. A final export does not preserve all the decisions that produced it.
Record a disclosure decision.
YouTube’s GenAI disclosure page, checked 9 September 2026, requires disclosure for meaningful AI alteration or generation of photorealistic content and gives examples involving real people, places and events. It also lists AI-generated music among examples that need disclosure. Routine production assistance, such as an AI outline, is listed among examples that do not need disclosure by itself. Check the current page for the whole upload; a single example may not describe everything in your video.
Build a contribution file.
- Name the format and the original contribution.
- List source assets and keep the licenses that cover the intended use.
- Record the disclosure decision, the reason and the date you checked the platform guidance.
- Keep drafts and working files that show the research, writing and editing.
- Name who checked factual claims and who can correct an error after publication.
Human review is work. Include fact checking, pronunciation correction, asset review and re-editing in the budget. An automation plan is incomplete when it counts the generation step and leaves the review step out.
Adapted from The Empty Chair, chapters 3–10 and Appendix B, the contribution file. Platform pages checked 9 September 2026. This exercise is not a monetization approval or a copyright clearance.