YouTube's Updated Eraser Tool Removes Copyrighted Music Without Impacting Other Audio

YouTube has released an AI-powered eraser tool to help creators easily remove copyrighted music from their videos without affecting other audio such as dialog or sound effects. TechCrunch's Ivan Mehta reports: On its support page, YouTube still warns that, at times, the algorithm might fail to remove just the song. "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 company said.

Alternatively, creators can choose to select "Mute all sound in the claimed segments" to silence bits of video that possibly has copyrighted material. Once the creator successfully edits the video, YouTube removes the content ID claim -- the company's system for identifying the use of copyrighted content in different clips. YouTube shared a video describing the feature on its Creator Insider channel.

Stealth Editing

[Kunedog]

Assuming YT hasn't fixed the issues around false DMCA claims, I'm not sure non-obvious on-the-fly "FTFY" editing is a better alternative than muting.

Oh, and rest assured they're working out how to use this to replace profanity and pronouns and wrong political opinions and any other plus-ungood audio.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming YT hasn't fixed the issues around false DMCA claims, I'm not sure non-obvious on-the-fly "FTFY" editing is a better alternative than muting.

You are not wrong, and there is a pretty long list of bigger problems that youtube hasn't fixed, with false DMCA claims hovering somewhere towards the top.

A good double-digit number of times YT has content claimed videos of mine containing no music, nothing more than my voice, tagged with a random assortment of "content used" and "claimed by" entries with NO timestamps what so ever.

I'm not even presented with an action menu item to mute a section, and I do not foresee this new option showing up either.

A sep

only favored correct opinions and content....

[will4]

> Oh, and rest assured they're working out how to use this to replace profanity and pronouns and wrong political opinions and any other plus-ungood audio.

Fully expect this given Google Youtube taking down videos of controversial topics, demonetizing unfavored speech, and other long steps towards allowing only proper opinions, proper images and proper politics on its platform.

---
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”
  Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

unfavored speech examples

[will4]

- Anything going against 100% advocacy for renewable energy
- Anything suggesting that groups of people outside of the favored ones may need government programs to help them. For example, special programs for early reading help for boys in low income schools
- Anything suggesting that global NGOs may not have the best interests of the country in mind
- Any statement that a member of the favored political party was caught on video taking a bribe

The examples above do not have the troll bait words like "spreadin

Greedy

[bill_mcgonigle]

For some reason copyright holders have gotten away with demanding 100% of monetization for a video with their sound in it, no matter how incidental.

They could have had proportional or honorific revenue sharing

Now they get nothing.

Good. Greedy people deserve nothing more.

Re:Greedy

[jenningsthecat]

For some reason copyright holders have gotten away with demanding 100% of monetization for a video with their sound in it, no matter how incidental.

They could have had proportional or honorific revenue sharing

Now they get nothing.

Good. Greedy people deserve nothing more.

There are a couple of problems here. The first is that videos such as Rick Beato's - which are educational AND contain relatively small segments of songs - are clearly fair use and SHOULD be exempt from takedowns. And without the infringing music bits, the videos are pretty much useless. So this new 'innovation' is not helpful in such cases. Inappropriate takedowns hurt the video creators far more than a minor loss of monetization revenue will hurt the bastards who run this extortion racket.

The second problem is that this new tool contributes to the normalization and acceptance of a situation which should never have been allowed to exist and which should be pushed back against - hard - at every turn.

Re:

[blackomegax]

Youtube is a private entity. If you wish to use your point of argument, you will have to wait until a government body starts doing this.

So they're claiming they invented the Mute button.

[Flamecation21]

Despite the obvious censorship uses, as well as the clearly meant to enable D-rank celebs crying for more money for usage, this might eventually become a good tool. Can it be used to remove laugh tracks from sitcoms, without disturbing the actor's dialogues?

Re:

[labnet]

Or in the of the Acolyte, add a laugh track to make it more bearable.

Awesome...

[martiniturbide]

...maybe now they can release an AI tool that find who is reporting copyright take down videos in 1969. https://twitter.com/martinitur... [twitter.com]

Re:

[Megane]

Oh boy, another case of a zero time field! (January 1, 1970 is well-known as the zero point of Unix timestamps, then subtract a few hours for a time zone offset and you get 1969!)

Oh Fuck...

[usedtobestine]

Seems to me like John Cage has copyrighed the silence in 1952 with his composition 4'33". So who is violating that copyright? Is it Youtube by providing the tool? Or is it the uploader by using the tool?

A pedantic correction

[Travelsonic]

Pedantic correction: "Allegedly-infringing". If it's created in a country where copyright is automatic, it's a copyrighted work regardless of if licensed, unlicensed, permissing given explicitly by the creator, implicitly through creative commons licensing, etc.

Seriously, the RIAA fucked people's understanding of copyright enough, we don't need to make it worse by wrongly using "copyrighted" as an incorrect synonym for "problematic to use."