YouTongue

Takedown

If you hold rights to a video and do not want it in our index, write to [email protected]. We remove on request, and we do not require you to prove your case first.

What we actually index

This matters for what a removal changes, so it is worth being precise:

  • We index only videos whose YouTube licence is Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) — the licence the uploader themselves selected on YouTube.
  • We store captions and timestamps, not video and not audio. No copy of your work exists on our servers.
  • We show the matched sentence and play the seconds around it, inside YouTube's own embedded player, from YouTube's own servers. The view, the ads and the attribution stay with you.

We believe this is a lawful use of CC BY material. We would rather remove a video than argue about it.

How to request removal

  1. Email [email protected].
  2. Include the YouTube video URL or video id. A channel URL works too if you want the whole channel excluded.
  3. Tell us who you are and in what capacity you are asking — the uploader, the rights holder, or an agent. One line is enough; we do not ask for documents.
  4. Optional but useful: whether you want the video removed, or only a specific timestamp suppressed.

What happens next

  • Within 5 business days we confirm receipt and remove the video from the live index.
  • The video id goes on a permanent exclusion list, so it does not come back on the next crawl. This is the part that matters: without it, removal lasts until the next rebuild.
  • We reply telling you it is done. We do not need you to follow up.

Other requests

  • Wrong or offensive caption text shown next to your video: same address, same process. Captions come from YouTube, but the display is ours, so it is our problem.
  • Pre-emptive exclusion: if you never want your channel indexed, say so and we will add the channel id to the exclusion list before we ever crawl it.
  • Formal DMCA notice: also accepted at the same address. It is not required — a plain email removes the video just as fast.

This page describes our practice, not a contract, and is not legal advice.

Last updated: 2026-09-22