Dragging this offtopic a bit, but is there any reason why YouTube couldn't add an upload flag of 'audio optional' so that in situations like this, it just muted the audio stream in the specified regions?
Then, if someone owns the copyright to the soundtrack, they file a complaint against only that, and the video remains up. Or, they can file against the whole thing, and have it completely blocked (assuming sufficient rights).
I have, on very rare occasions, seen videos on Youtube muted for copyright issues on the audio. I don't how they choose to do that over taking down the entire video, nor if they still do it, though.
Since the audio and video streams are muxed into a single file, and the copyright "check" is done based on location this would mean YouTube encoding every video twice (and for each resolution), effectively doubling YouTube's storage requirements.... most people will then re-upload their video in a non-infringing manor anyway, so it would be quite wasteful.
I was imagining something more along the lines of a server-side filter that stripped the audio chunks out of the stream as it sent, although I have no idea if such a thing is practical.
They've already re-encoded their entire library once (for WebM support), so in theory they are capable of it. The storage requirements might be a killer though.
I suspect it's technically possible, but maybe the potential revenue from the effort wouldn't make economic sense.
Quaintly antique machinery and DIY — this is probably going to be a hit with the steampunk community.