Cut a Creative Commons YouTube video into a Short: what credit?

You can reuse a video that its creator released under Creative Commons Attribution, as long as you credit it. YouTube's help page says reuse of CC BY content requires credit that includes the work's title, author, source URL and license information. It also says CC BY content can be monetized if the license grants commercial rights, though some creators may require attribution or proof of purchase for commercial use.

Those are the rules of the license, read on 2026-10-03 from the YouTube Help license page. They are not the same question as whether the Short is treated as original content for recommendations, which this post does not answer; crediting the creator and originality covers that. Below: the credit line, the cut, and what Sume can and cannot take as input.

What must the credit contain?

Four items, per the help page: the title of the work, its author, the source URL and the license information. A credit that names the channel but not the license, or links the channel but not the video, is incomplete by that list.

Where to put it matters for Shorts. A Short's description is easy to miss on a phone, so put a short credit on screen too. The help page does not specify placement, so on-screen plus description is a conservative choice rather than a stated requirement.

Which sources are not eligible?

The help page limits CC BY to originally created content, content already released under CC BY, and public domain material, and it says a video with a Content ID claim cannot carry a CC BY license. So a clip labelled Creative Commons that itself contains claimed music is a risk you inherit; check the audio before you build on it. The claim side is covered in Shorts Content ID claims.

How do I cut it with Sume?

Sume's trim takes one clip that already sits on media.sume.com in your workspace; off-host URLs are rejected, so the file has to be imported first through POST /v1/media-imports. The docs describe no import from a YouTube watch page, and the video-analyses docs list YouTube URLs as 422 unsupported_source. Use a file you are entitled to hold, such as the creator's own master that they shared with you.

A Short is up to 3 minutes per YouTube's Shorts help page, and trim output is capped at 900 seconds, so keep the cut well inside 180 seconds. This request cuts 58 seconds from second 12 and keeps the audio.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-trim \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: cc-short-001" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/harbour.mp4",
    "start": 12,
    "duration": 58,
    "precision": "exact"
  }'

What should the finished Short say?

Add your own contribution, not only a cut. Reused content versus inauthentic content explains the two rule families, and the license does not replace either. The 3-minute trim guide shows the length side. If you are unsure whether the source is truly CC BY, check the license setting on the original video's page before you cut anything.

What if the creator asks for more than the license?

The help page notes that some creators may require attribution or proof of purchase for commercial use. If you plan to monetize the Short, read the original video's description for any extra terms, and keep a copy of the license setting and the date you checked it. A screenshot of the license line on the source video is cheap evidence.

Also keep a record of the cut: the source URL, the start and end you trimmed, and the Sume job id. Sume's trim result reports actual_start_seconds and duration_seconds, which is enough to show exactly which range you used. That record helps if the author later asks which part of the video you reused.

None of this replaces permission when the source is not Creative Commons. If the video carries the standard license, the help page's CC BY rules do not apply, and you need the creator's permission instead.