YouTube Studio’s Erase Song tool will soon let you silence copyrighted music without affecting the rest of the audio.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced the news in an X post, which links to a tutorial video explaining how to use the feature.
Typically, those who receive a copyright complaint on a video have a few editing options, including: trim the video, mute all audio, or replace the song in question. The Erase Song tool has also been available in beta, but it "wasn't as accurate" as YouTube would've liked, so the company added "a new AI-powered algorithm to more accurately identify and remove copyrighted content."
Going forward, when creators click "erase song," there will be two options: Erase song and Mute all sound. On the video copyright summary page, click Select Action > Erase song. From there, choose Erase song or Mute all sound in the claimed segments. If you pick the latter, all sounds will be muted in the section that includes the copyrighted song, but Erase Song will only remove the song; voiceovers and other audio will remain.
If you manually trim the clip, make sure you get it all. YouTube’s support page warns that if any copyrighted content remains in your video, “the claim won’t be removed"—and content creators won't be able to monetize their work.
Look for the updated Erase Song tool on YouTube Studio desktop and YouTube Studio Mobile in the coming weeks.