YouTube AI music disclosure: when background music needs a label

YouTube's help page on altered or synthetic content lists "AI generated music" under examples of content creators need to disclose, and ties disclosure to content that is generated or meaningfully altered with AI when it appears realistic. Music made with an AI model like the ones behind Sume's Music Router falls under that wording; whether your particular track counts as realistic is a judgment YouTube's page leaves to you.

What does YouTube say needs disclosure, and what does not?

The page names cases in both directions. Sume's docs say nothing about YouTube's rules, so everything in this table is from YouTube's page.

Does background music under a video count?

The page does not carve out background music, so do not assume it is exempt because it sits under other audio. The exemptions it names are repair and enhancement of recorded audio, which is not the same as generating a track. If a video contains a generated song, treat "AI generated music" as applying and answer the disclosure question in Studio when you upload.

What does a Sume music job give me to keep on file?

A completed Music 1.0 job returns a Sume-hosted audio artifact, typically audio/mpeg on media.sume.com, and the docs say raw provider URLs are not public outputs. New integrations are pointed at POST /v1/music-router/generate. Keep the job id next to each video so you can tell later which tracks were generated; Sume does not add a YouTube label for you.

What should I record when I upload?

Write down three things per video: the job id of each generated track, the date you generated it, and the answer you gave to YouTube's disclosure question. That gives you a plain record if you later need to explain what the audio was. YouTube's page says the label is shown in the video player for photorealistic content and otherwise in the expanded description, so check where it appears after you publish.

Tracks you did not generate, such as licensed library music, are a different question that this page does not address; it speaks only of content generated or meaningfully altered with AI.

What is not covered here?

This post does not say how YouTube detects AI music, whether it does so automatically, or how detection affects monetization; the page read for this post does not describe those. For the wider policy see YouTube's AI content policy, and for track length in Shorts see how long a song can play in a YouTube Short.