> Why should companies like Google be allowed to profit off content creators' work
> without complying with those content creators' licenses?
If it's about profit, simply having YouTube pay all revenue from infringing videos to the real owner, might be a much better idea than to block all content.
The process might work like this: A publishes something, gets revenue from it. B claims copyright. YT suspends payment to A until the issue is settled. When B turns out to be right, B gets all the withheld revenue plus however much YT already paid to A, either to be paid by A, or to be withheld by YT from other payments to A.
Or it turns out B was wrong, willfully so, and A just lost their income. Sadly, this was A's most popular content and, since A was living paycheck to paycheck, they were unable to pay their rent and were evicted.
B went on to do the same to many other small content creators, because B has 100 million dollars in the bank.
Then A disputes the claim a YouTube asks B if the they are sure its infringing on their copyright. B lies and says yes, then YouTube sides with B while A gets a copyright strike, 3 of which and you lose your channel.
Scammers are also extorting money from Youtubers using this feature of Youtube's claim process. See: ObbyRaidz
In case of conflict, YouTube shouldn't blindly side with the most powerful party as they're currently doing. Legally the fairest way would be an impartial judge, but in practice small players can't afford the legal representation for that.
Yeah, there does need to be a way to restrict bad actors. And this is already a real problem: major corporations claiming copyright over other people's original content on YouTube, and that original content getting blocked as a result. When a company does that regularly, submits too many false positives, their ability to claim ownership should be restricted somehow. At least there should be some sort of reasonable consequence. But at the very least, the original owner should retain ownership and eventually get their money again, and that's not currently happening.
In one vote in the EP, something similar was proposed as an alternative:
* Make (big) platforms provide APIs with which rightholders can check new posts for their copyrighted content and request either removal or monetisation
* Give uploaders 48 hours to contest removal requests before they are honoured, during which their uploads stay online, but may be removed from search results
* Once an infringement is identified and not contested, all earned revenue goes to the rightholders
That's rather sensible. However, it was voted down in favor of just making platforms legally liable for all uploads. https://juliareda.eu/2018/09/copyright-showdown/ (The "EPP group" proposals won – that's the Parliament position, not to be confused with the Council's, which are yet to be fully reconciled).
I'm strongly considering voting straight Pirate Party for the EP from now on. Copyright and internet freedom seems to be by far the most important concern for the Europarliament these days.
The big problem is to get the majority of voters on board.
The process might work like this: A publishes something, gets revenue from it. B claims copyright. YT suspends payment to A until the issue is settled. When B turns out to be right, B gets all the withheld revenue plus however much YT already paid to A, either to be paid by A, or to be withheld by YT from other payments to A.