X Now Pays Both Sides of a Clip. Clips Are Capped at 30% of the Video, and Creators Can't Opt Out.

X has made clipping a paid, built-in feature. Since 9 November, anyone on the X app for iOS or Android can cut 5 to 60 seconds from another creator's video, add commentary and post it. If both the clipper and the original creator are in X's Original Content Rewards program, both get paid.

"Until now, clipping on X meant downloading videos, editing them using outside tools, and reuploading," wrote Allegra Jacchia, who leads creator product at X, in the launch post. "Even when a clip went viral, they didn't earn from it." X's @XCreators announcement had passed 1.5 million views by Tuesday.

The rules

Only pre-recorded videos of at least two minutes can be clipped. Livestreams can't be clipped yet, and Jacchia replied "It's coming :)" when asked. A clip can use no more than 30% of the original, according to X's help documentation as reported by NetInfluencer, Digital Trends and the clipping-tool site Klypra. That means a two-minute video gives at most 36 seconds, and only videos longer than 3 minutes 20 seconds can give a full minute. Every clip carries a "Clip from" label that opens the original at the clipped timestamp. If the creator deletes the original, every clip of it disappears.

Creators can't stop people clipping them. NetInfluencer, citing the help page, reported that there is no opt-out yet and that X says it is building one. YouTube handled this differently: when it turned on Watch With live reactions for all long-form videos in September, it let creators switch the feature off in YouTube Studio, Tubefilter reported.

Who gets paid, and how much

X hasn't published a rate or a split. The clipper earns from engagement on the clip "the same way" as their other posts. The original creator's share is calculated like earnings from embedded reposts of their video and arrives in the regular payout, NetInfluencer reported. Clips don't count toward X's invite-only Video Kickstart Bonus.

Getting into the program isn't easy. X's Original Content Rewards page, as archived on 23 August, requires a Premium subscription, 500 verified followers and 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users in the last 90 days. Pay is based only on "qualified impressions": one view per Premium subscriber, on the Home Timeline, with at least half the post on screen. Payouts come every two weeks, with a $30 minimum. A clipper without a paid subscription and an audience earns nothing, however far a clip travels.

The rule change underneath

The bigger change is what X now counts as original. The same archived policy lists "content that is downloaded from X or other platforms and then reuploaded onto X" as ineligible, along with "minimally modified" posts and "cross-platform reposts." Under that policy, published in August, a ripped and re-uploaded clip earned nothing. A native clip of the same moment, with commentary, can now earn for two accounts.

That points clip farms toward X's tool and away from their own editing tools. "Next week all you dirty rippers better use the native feature," posted @Jason, the account of investor Jason Calacanis, in a post Jacchia reposted. Paid clipping marketplaces such as Whop's Content Rewards pay per 1,000 views at a rate the brand sets. X's version pays from its own pool, at a rate it won't disclose. Whether that is worth more than $1 per 1,000 views depends on numbers X hasn't released.