Material can change or disappear
Reported material can change. It can be edited, retitled, made private or deleted — sometimes soon after the uploader realises someone is looking. Once it is gone, the record of what was there is whatever you captured before it went.
When that happens, a matter that looked strong can become impossible to document, even though the copying was real.
Capture order
Work outward from the thing most likely to vanish.
The exact address
The direct address of the specific item, in the format the platform uses for that content type — a watch page for a video, a post link for a post, the channel address where the material is the channel’s own banner or description. Never a search result, and never a whole account in place of the item. Record it as text you can copy, not only inside an image.
The page as it appeared
A full-page capture showing the material, its title, the account that posted it, the visible publication date, and the URL bar in the same frame. A cropped screenshot showing only the content proves far less than one showing its context.
The material itself
Where the platform’s terms permit it and you need it to demonstrate the copying, a copy of the material as it stood. Note when you captured it.
The comparison
The specific correspondence between your work and the copy — matching timestamps, matching passages, matching frames. A claim of copying is only as good as the correspondence someone else can check.
Your own record
Your original URL, its publication date, and whatever shows the work is yours: source files, project archives, the account that first published it, or a registration if one exists.
Why a screenshot alone is weak
A screenshot is an image of a claim, not evidence of one. It carries no independent indication of when it was made, and it is easily edited. It is still worth taking — but it should not be the only thing you have.
What strengthens it is corroboration that does not depend on you: an independent archive of the page, a platform-generated notification or email that references the item, or a record held by someone other than the person asserting the claim. Two independent traces of the same fact are worth more than one careful screenshot.
Record your captures as you make them, with the date. A note that says what was captured, when, and by whom turns a folder of images into something another person can follow.
Partial copying needs timestamps
Where only part of a work was used, the copied portion has to be locatable by someone who was not there. Record the start and end points in the copy, and the corresponding points in your original, as explicit times.
Their upload, 04:12–07:35 corresponds to our original, 00:48–04:11 is checkable. They used a chunk of our video is not.
Evidence before enforcement is the first thing our standard asks for. When the documentation is assembled before anyone contacts a platform, we can review the matter properly — and a matter whose evidence is incomplete is declined rather than filed on optimism.