Monetizing Infringing Youtube Videos Instead Of Taking Them Offline Has Essentially Transformed The Anti-piracy Tool Into A Cash Cow

This article looks at the lack of transparency from Google when it comes to how many videos are flagged and removed on YouTube. Going down the rabbit hole they think this is a big money maker for Youtube.

At the Senate hearing last December, Oyama said that YouTube paid more than $5.5 billion in ad revenue to rightsholders from content that was claimed and monetized through Content ID.

What YouTube didn’t highlight is that it made billions in revenue from these same videos as well. Revenue that would have (partially) been lost if the videos had been taken offline.

Monetizing ‘infringing’ videos instead of taking them offline has essentially transformed the anti-piracy tool into a cash cow that generates massive amounts of money for copyright holders and YouTube.