YouTube introduces updated Delete Song tool for developers

July 5, 2024

YouTube is giving creators access to an improved tool called Erase Song that can remove a copyrighted song without affecting the rest of the audio in the video.

An updated version of Erase Song was announced earlier this week and is now rolling out, available to developers. 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 explains briefly:

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

The feature is explained further on a support page, where YouTube says that the option appears on videos where there is a copyright claim that relates to audio only. In addition to removing the song alone, the tool can also mute all audio during certain parts of the video affected by the copyright claim.

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

This edit may not work if the song is difficult to remove. If this tool is not successful in unclaiming a video, you can try other editing options like muting all the audio in the claimed segments or cutting out the claimed segments.

Additionally, the tool may not work if the video has more than 100,000 views. Additionally, YouTube states that processing time “may vary,” meaning it may take a while.

“Erase Song” will be available in YouTube Studio on desktop and mobile “in the coming weeks.”