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YouTube seems to have three main priorities with their copyright system: 1) Eliminate legal liability and risk of lawsuits. Technically all they need to do is

YouTube seems to have three main priorities with their copyright system: 1) Eliminate legal liability and risk of lawsuits. Technically all they need to do is comply with DMCA requests, but YouTube would rather not be sued by a major record company or film studio, even if they could win the case. 2) Become friendly with major content creators (record and film labels, television studios). YouTube wants a good working relationship with these companies, to ensure that these companies post their content on YouTube. YouTube really wants the views they get by hosting SNL clips and Beyonce music videos. 3) Actually help the independent content creators deal with copyright claims. This is a very, very distant third. Because of these priorities, YouTube has decided their best course of action is to offload all of the work on copyright claims onto the independent content creators, in order to keep the big media giants happy. After all, NBC doesn't need YouTube, but a solo channel with 50k subscribers absolutely does.

hogFeast 5y ago
I think point 2 is actually quite important. YouTube used to be a source of genuinely innovative content. It is now far more corporate and anodyne, and the most popular videos are largely big production companies, and part of that is copy-striking. Ofc, the intention of copy-striking was not to decrease competition. But that ended up happening because of the way that the system is implemented (it isn't just copy-striking, I think reporting violations/automated violation systems have the same consequence).
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Nonsense. Most of the videos on YouTube are still made by individual people. Just because there is now also corporate stuff on there doesn't mean you have to watch it. What do you want to do? Ban corporations from using YouTube? I don't think I'm subscribed to a single corporate channel out of about 100 subscriptions. * 3b1b * Matthias Wandel * Applied Science * Colin Furze * Scott Manley * Practical Engineering * Tom Scott * Tantacrul * CGP Grey * Forgotten Weapons * StuffMadeHere * John Heisz * Clickspring * Internet Historian ... YouTube is bursting at the seams with quality content made by individuals or tiny teams.
  - fartcannon 5y ago
    Is Tantacrul still blessing the exploitation of Audacity's previous good name?
    - Ygg2 5y ago
      I assume implicitly, yes.
    - IshKebab 5y ago
      If you mean "trying to improve the usability of Audacity" then sure. Pretty much all of the stuff in HN about it was wrong.
      - fartcannon 5y ago
        The best part was when they added so much spyware to Audacity that they said children couldn't use it anymore.
        IshKebab 5y ago
        Ha yeah the part where under-13s weren't allowed to opt in to the telemetry was really misunderstood. Lots of people leaping to crazy conclusions like that children couldn't use it at all, or they were sharing all the telemetry with the KGB or whatever.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - concordDance 5y ago
    A lot of those channels are small corporations.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Individuals incorporating themselves, then adding in their friends who also appear in their videos and maybe some assistants is a bit different than billion dollars companies posting their videos.
throwawayboise 5y ago
It's quite simple. YouTube wants to be a dominant source for streaming music, to compete with Spotify. In order to do so they must keep the music labels happy. They don't really care about content creators anymore.
- charles_f 5y ago
  That sounds wrong. YouTube is by an order of magnitude the first video streaming platform on the way. I doubt that, were way to rake all Spotify's audience they would make even a significant portion of their video ad revenue.
  - ImPostingOnHN 5y ago
    the growth demanded by shareholders isn't always horizontal or incremental
kmeisthax 5y ago
You forgot corrolary 2)a) backdoor license other people's content under the guise of the Monetize option in Content ID.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  One minor new annoyance is that they check the option to allow remixing a video in Shorts by default, and hide it behind a "show additional options" link on the video settings.

hogFeast 5y ago

I think point 2 is actually quite important. YouTube used to be a source of genuinely innovative content. It is now far more corporate and anodyne, and the most popular videos are largely big production companies, and part of that is copy-striking. Ofc, the intention of copy-striking was not to decrease competition. But that ended up happening because of the way that the system is implemented (it isn't just copy-striking, I think reporting violations/automated violation systems have the same consequence).

IshKebab 5y ago
Nonsense. Most of the videos on YouTube are still made by individual people. Just because there is now also corporate stuff on there doesn't mean you have to watch it. What do you want to do? Ban corporations from using YouTube? I don't think I'm subscribed to a single corporate channel out of about 100 subscriptions. * 3b1b * Matthias Wandel * Applied Science * Colin Furze * Scott Manley * Practical Engineering * Tom Scott * Tantacrul * CGP Grey * Forgotten Weapons * StuffMadeHere * John Heisz * Clickspring * Internet Historian ... YouTube is bursting at the seams with quality content made by individuals or tiny teams.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Is Tantacrul still blessing the exploitation of Audacity's previous good name?
  - Ygg2 5y ago
    I assume implicitly, yes.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    If you mean "trying to improve the usability of Audacity" then sure. Pretty much all of the stuff in HN about it was wrong.
    - fartcannon 5y ago
      The best part was when they added so much spyware to Audacity that they said children couldn't use it anymore.
      - IshKebab 5y ago
        Ha yeah the part where under-13s weren't allowed to opt in to the telemetry was really misunderstood. Lots of people leaping to crazy conclusions like that children couldn't use it at all, or they were sharing all the telemetry with the KGB or whatever.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- concordDance 5y ago
  A lot of those channels are small corporations.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Individuals incorporating themselves, then adding in their friends who also appear in their videos and maybe some assistants is a bit different than billion dollars companies posting their videos.

throwawayboise 5y ago

It's quite simple. YouTube wants to be a dominant source for streaming music, to compete with Spotify. In order to do so they must keep the music labels happy. They don't really care about content creators anymore.

charles_f 5y ago
That sounds wrong. YouTube is by an order of magnitude the first video streaming platform on the way. I doubt that, were way to rake all Spotify's audience they would make even a significant portion of their video ad revenue.
- ImPostingOnHN 5y ago
  the growth demanded by shareholders isn't always horizontal or incremental

kmeisthax 5y ago

You forgot corrolary 2)a) backdoor license other people's content under the guise of the Monetize option in Content ID.

nitrogen 5y ago
One minor new annoyance is that they check the option to allow remixing a video in Shorts by default, and hide it behind a "show additional options" link on the video settings.