Why Can’t It Still Tell Background Music from Copyrighted Music?
I honestly have to ask:
What is YouTube’s AI actually doing?
It’s 2025.
AI can write code, edit videos, generate voices—yet somehow, it still struggles with one of the most basic tasks: telling background music apart from copyrighted music.
And this isn’t a rare bug.
It’s consistent. It’s repetitive. It’s frustrating.
Many creators have experienced this:
a video contains ambient sound, music playing faintly in the background at an event, or audio that clearly isn’t the main focus—
and it still gets flagged.
Sure, you can appeal.
Sure, you can wait.
But the outcome is slow, uncertain, and often unfair.
The problem isn’t new.
YouTube knows there’s a clear difference between using music as content and music existing in real-life environments.
Yet the system chooses the laziest solution:
If it sounds similar, flag it first.
Who does this benefit?
Not creators—the platform.
When AI gets it wrong, creators pay the price:
reduced reach, frozen monetization, copyright strikes, and long-term channel risk.
YouTube, on the other hand, loses almost nothing.
What’s even more ironic is that YouTube encourages creators to vlog, document daily life, and record live events—
while enforcing an audio system that clearly doesn’t understand how real-world sound works.
Music in public space equals risk.
Live events equal responsibility on the creator.
That’s not copyright protection—that’s system laziness.
If AI keeps misjudging so easily, the real issue isn’t whether creators use music.
It’s whether YouTube is willing to admit one thing:
Its AI isn’t as smart as it claims to be.