Now I'll concede and say you may be right so long as the contract or ToS reads that way. My intuition would tell me that when a user agrees to allow youtube to

Now I'll concede and say you may be right so long as the contract or ToS reads that way. My intuition would tell me that when a user agrees to allow youtube to use their content as a revenue stream in exchange for a cut of the revenue then that is what the uploader/owner is entitled to. Contract law is extremely clear on what is necessary for what's called "consideration" and allowing one party of the contract to willfully provide that consideration to an unauthorized 3rd party without the contractual party's consent opens themselves to lawsuit. Again, I'm going to go on the record here and admit you're probably right. Contracts by youtube and the like will be as vague as possible providing the maximum power to themselves in order to run the system. I would fully expect terms of the contract to provide the uploader with next to 0 rights regarding their content once its handed over.