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New Delhi: YouTube has recently introduced a new upgrade named the “erase song” tool that will enable content creators to remove copyrighted music from videos uploaded on the site. In this digital age of technology, YouTube has remained the world’s most popular social media site, with nearly 2.7 billion active users globally.
While YouTube personnel keep a steady lookout for possible breaches of copyrighted content, the diverse geo-political contexts of varying countries, in addition to legal loopholes in international copyright infringement laws, have posed a considerable challenge to them until now.
With the rollout of the upgraded tool, YouTube ensures that the millions of content creators who rely on the platform for income have a fair chance of removing their copyrighted music from unauthorized or third-party uploaders. Needless to say, users will first need to have their account verified by YouTube and will also need to make sure that their content is copyrighted against infringements in the first place.
Previously, YouTube allowed users the option of reporting any content that used their copyrighted music or audio files, but that’s all. Then they had to wait for YouTube moderators to take note of their reports and remove the content if copyright infringement laws were breached. But with the rollout of the new feature, YouTube has granted users the necessary controls, in the form of the “erase song” tool, to take charge of their rightful content with or without further intervention from YouTube authorities.
As human technology has advanced, so have the digital features of social media platforms since the early 2000s, in addition to the problems that plague them. Apart from copyright infringements, issues like misinformation and fake news, extremism, data privacy concerns, algorithm bias, and clickbait have also reached record highs as of late.
Copyrighted music or audio is primarily seen in “reels” or short video formats (30 seconds) that have seen a spike in recent years. With the significant overlap in users across platforms, it can be estimated that the number of individuals indulging in making reels ranges from hundreds of millions to over a billion as of 2024.
The massive scale of the platform’s users made global monitoring a hassle for YouTube personnel, costing both precious time and human resources. The updated “erase song” tool powered by AI- algorithms aims to bridge this crucial gap in monitoring by turning over controls to users who have established a steady source of income from the site.
The upgraded feature also gives users the option to edit out just the audio segment of their copyrighted creations from videos that repost their content. As long as the audio segment has been copyrighted by the original creator, the AI-powered “erase song” tool will swiftly provide users with three choices: to remove the claimed audio segment altogether, replace the audio, or mute the copyrighted audio segment.
After the removal of the copyrighted audio, YouTube will remove the “content ID claim” notification (a claim informing YouTube about copyright infringement reports from original users or uploaders) from the company’s system, marking the issue as resolved.
YouTube’s chief, Neal Mohan, announced the feature rollout earlier this week on an X post saying, “Good news, creators: our updated Erase Song tool helps you easily remove copyright-claimed music from your video while leaving the rest of your audio intact.”
The steps to remove copyright content from any video are as follows:
Sign in to YouTube Studio > From the left menu, select content > Click the filter bar and click on Copyright > Find the video you’re interested in > In the Restrictions column, hover over Copyright > Click See Details > Under the content identified in this video section, find the relevant claim and click Select Actions > Trim out segments, Replace song, or Mute song.
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The newly rolled-out AI tool by YouTube is a precursor to the large-scale implementation of artificial intelligence to boost human productivity while reducing strain. While the algorithms and protocols running the AI tool will allow content creators to exercise autonomous control over their copyrighted content, it will also be closely monitored by human operators of YouTube.
The continued development and implementation of AI technology on mainstream social media services like YouTube points towards a future where AI will likely take over many of humanity’s time-consuming aspects while doubling productivity at the same time.
