[jonnathanson]

My charitable guess is that Content ID isn't available to everyone because of scaling issues with the vetting process for the database. While it's theoretically possible to open the floodgates to everyone, that would present a massive human resource challenge for Google. I have no idea how Google's vetting process works for those who meet the eligibility requirements...but I imagine it involves lawyers and background checks to verify that the ostensible copyright owner is who they say they are, and is indeed the owner of what they claim to own.

Setting a high bar for eligibility presumably cuts down on fraud, wasted cycles vetting obvious noise, and the need for an army of people to do the vetting and legal checksumming around the clock.

The little guy is collateral damage in this case, not the intended target. You could argue, hey, potato potahto, the net result is a system that favors the large content publisher and offers the little guy no chance to participate. But intent matters. If Google's intent is to manage scale, then hopefully Google acknowledges the unintended problems its solution creates, and it's working on a better solution. If Google's intent is indeed to favor the big publishers, then that's a different story.

[maxerickson]

I think it's very much potato potahto. The current (and pretty much any future) implementation is a business decision.

I actually don't find it all that troublesome. The big selling point of Youtube is that it is relatively easy to get attention there. That doesn't do much to create a situation where it is hard to get attention elsewhere.

[mrgoldenbrown]

That is overly charitable. Google does not vet Content ID claims to be sure that the claimer is actually the copyright owner. Lots of smaller content producers get takedown notices when a bigger player steals content, reuploads it, and then issues Content ID takedown notices to the original creator.

[jonnathanson]

I wasn't saying they vet claims per se; I was saying they almost certainly have to vet people who sign up for Content ID in the first place. Which might explain why they limit signup privileges to known commodities. (Or at least might partially explain it).

YouTube has business and licensing agreements in place with some of these content owners. There is absolutely no way they aren't vetting signups for Content ID in at least some capacity. For one thing, how would they pay people their rev share for premium content clips if they didn't have reasonable assurance those people really were MTV, or NBC, or Sony Music, or what have you?

Now, is my overall explanation overly charitable? Entirely possible. I really have no idea what goes on with this process. All I'm doing is offering a possible explanation.