YouTube launches updated ‘Erase Song’ tool for creators

YouTube is giving creators access to an improved tool, “Erase Song,” which allows a copyrighted song to be removed without affecting other audio in the video.

Announced earlier this week and rolling out now, an updated version of “Erase Song” is available to creators. The option was previously available in beta, but not to all users and, as YouTube says in a video, its performance wasn’t great. The updated version of this tool uses AI to remove a song from a video, but without removing a creator’s dialogue or other sounds.

YouTube briefly explains:

Remove the claimed song while keeping other sounds such as speech, or mute all sound.

The feature is further explained on a support page, where YouTube says the option appears on videos that have a copyright claim that is related solely to audio. Alongside removing the song only, the tool can also mute all audio during specific portions of the video that are affected by the copyright claim.

Removing a specific portion of audio from a finished video is no easy task, and YouTube admits that it may not work in all cases, saying:

This edit might not work if the song is hard to remove. If this tool doesn’t successfully remove the claim on a video, you can try other editing options, such as muting all sound in the claimed segments, or trimming out the claimed segments.

The tool may also not work if the video has more than 100,000 views, and YouTube says that processing times “can vary,” implying it may take a while.

“Erase Song” is rolling out to YouTube Studio on desktop and mobile devices “in the coming weeks.”