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There are many interesting questions on Stack Overflow, that have many good answers and many good comments. I want to make an animated YouTube video about a question and some answers to help visual learners better understand the problem and the solutions. I want to upload this video to a potentially commercialized YouTube channel.

The Stack Overflow license requires me to give attribution and to share the new content under the same license. Giving attribution seems as simple as linking back in the description or at the end of the video. However, sharing it with the same license appears to be a problem since I can only choose between the YouTube standard license and a creative commons license. I am not sure if it is possible to match the YouTube licenses with the Stack Overflow licenses.

Am I allowed to do a YouTube video about a Stack Overflow Q/A? Under which conditions?

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    This question would be perfectly suited at Law. From a bit of quick googling it appears youtube lets you upload your content under a CC-BY 3.0 license, which isn't the same license that SE uses.
    – Luuklag
    Commented Dec 1, 2021 at 20:34
  • just wait until you see youtube.com/@peterschneiderQandA/videos :P I randomly discovered two of my answer posts on their channel. low-quality, low-effort, high-throughput regurgitation of content from SE Q&A.
    – starball
    Commented Oct 15, 2023 at 6:56

1 Answer 1

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Disclaimer: IANAL

It won't work with the out-of-the-box license options provided by YouTube:

  1. It uses a different version of Creative Commons (BY, not BY-SA) than Stack Exchange, and moreover they're using an older version (3.0 vs. 4.0, though older content on Stack Exchange is licensed under 3.0 or even 2.5). The difference is the Share Alike clause:

    Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

    which is missing from the BY variant which YouTube uses. It's also not listed as being compatible with CC BY-SA. So that won't work out of the box.

  2. YouTube's standard license is too restrictive; it does not allow others to use your video as basis for their own (CC BY-SA licensed) content.

However, it's also simply possible to state a license in your video description. Here is an example which is uploaded under YouTube's standard license but specifies it's also licensed under a different variation of Creative Commons.

See also Using CC-BY-SA (v3 and v4) content in YouTube video on Open Source Stack Exchange.

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  • On what basis am I allowed to modify the offered licenses by YouTube? Can I modify the YouTube licenses completly to my liking?
    – Fee
    Commented Dec 1, 2021 at 22:11
  • that would be a seperate question, best asked on Law @user2600312
    – Luuklag
    Commented Dec 1, 2021 at 22:18
  • @Luuklag I did that now here.
    – Fee
    Commented Dec 2, 2021 at 0:31

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