[wostusername]

Google does not have the power to determine if something is fair use or not, that is up to the courts. You might think something is fair use, and I might disagree. We are supposed to go to court and have a trial to determine which one of us is right. Google is not judge and jury, they can't make that determination.

[jimktrains2]

Isn't the issue that they're depriving the user of income based solely on a non-legal (not not-legal) complaint? If YouTube really justed wanted to have people Duke it out in court, they wouldn't have their own system that is massively tilted towards the studios. They're effectively allowing one side to be judge and jury.

[wostusername]

There are two different processes here: the DMCA and ContentID.

If YouTube receives a DMCA request it will take the video down immediately (in accordance to the law). However, you can counter the DMCA claim at which point the other party has to either drop it or sue you.

ContentID is the non-legal system which essentially blocks or transfers monetization (copyright holder's choice) for any detected copyrighted work in YouTube's database. YouTube developed it to avoid fighting studios.

Since there are no objective standards to determine if something is fair use or not, instead it's a bunch of factors that are all supposed to be weighted against each other by a judge, there is no way for YouTube to determine if something is legal infringement of copyright (Fair Use) or illegal infringement of copyright. The solution here for YouTube is to be conservative and not allow any infringement against the rights holder's wishes.

It's not a great system, but I understand why it is the way it is, and I'm not sure how or even if it could be changed.