This is actually legit. The DMCA only provides protection for service providers, not individuals. There is also no differentiation between embedding and linking

This is actually legit. The DMCA only provides protection for service providers, not individuals. There is also no differentiation between embedding and linking to content and hosting the copyrighted content yourself. A couple cases where this might be relevant: * A site which allows users to embed videos could get a DMCA takedown request and would be obligated to remove the embed. In the case of YouTube videos it hasn't really been an issue so far because it makes more sense for the copyright owner to go directly to YouTube. * If you have a blog where you post lots of embedded videos of pirated movies/shows, you could be sued as if you had uploaded and hosted the infringing videos.