This something that is going to have to be planned will also need a way of dealing with copyright issues. It sounds like an extremely difficult problem, which is why YouTube is having trouble in the first place. I doubt they enjoy these (very public) mistakes.
For example, how exactly do you catch videos using copyrighted material and deal with disputes when thousands of hours of video are uploaded every hour? Doing this manually is likely infeasible. But algorithms are error-prone, as YouTube exemplifies very well. Or how exactly do you stand up to these massive billion-dollar media companies without going bankrupt during your first court case? Which (I think) is why YouTube currently simply goes along with whatever these companies demand.
Criticizing YouTube is easy. What is hard is coming up with better solutions that could actually be implemented in whatever YouTube could potentially be replaced with.
YouTube got in trouble because they were knowingly making money from infringing content. Viacom sued them for a billion dollars and YouTube barely won on a technicality. ContentID was a way to get copyright holders off their backs. If you're not sending internal memos about how all of your money comes from pirated blockbuster movies, the DMCA safe harbor makes things a lot easier for you as a service provider. You'll need an automated way to take down videos and forward complaints to uploaders, and an automated way for the uploader to say they're challenging the complaint. After that it's between them, and won't involve you until you get a court order when the uploader loses the lawsuit and is forced to remove the video.
> For example, how exactly do you catch videos using copyrighted material and deal with disputes when thousands of hours of video are uploaded every hour?
I would argue if they can't responsibly handle it then perhaps they just shouldn't be doing it. They want to have their cake, and eat it too while passing the negative outcomes on to everyone else. Maybe videos shouldn't be public the moment they're uploaded to allow for adequate review, since they clearly have trouble as is. There's a solution.
I don't think they care a fig, tbh. If they did, then they'd have a small department that watched for bad publicity like this, and proactively fixed it ASAP. It would cost them virtually nothing, and solve the reputational problem overnight.
Good point. But whether they do (or don't) care, the fact that these problems aren't being fixed for so long now implies that they don't consider the damage to their bottom line to be significant enough to invest any major resources into fixing them. Which is why thinking about competitive solutions is worth-while, I think. Having a platform that would solve these problems well, and hence poach the disillusioned creators, might be enough motivation for YouTube to start moving.
