[driverdan]

> I'm sure YouTube would love to be more lenient...

I downvoted you because this is not true. YouTube has built their own takedown system that goes above and beyond the legal requirements. They could be more lenient to users and follow the law but instead they made it easier for content to get taken down.

[icebraining]

The problem is that there's evidence that YouTube was purposefully uploading and allowing copyrighted content, which means they are no longer fully protected by the safe harbour provisions of the law, and risked losing the Viacom lawsuit. ContentID came as a compromise from that.