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3) Google bills my credit card for hundreds of dollars.

Did you complain? Were you issued a refund? I'm trying to understand how Google justifies withholding past earnings from the site owner and continuing to profit from the YouTube content. If they incur real costs from refunding advertisers, it makes some sense. But if they keep everyone's money, they have an incentive to abuse the system.

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>and continuing to profit from the YouTube content.

I believe ads are only shown on youtube content with the permission of the copyright owner. There don't appear to be any ads on his videos at the moment.

Here's an example video of his: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ma_hZ00Nqk&feature=playe...

No ads doesn't mean Youtube may not generate goodwill or promote other videos from what is legally his content. i.e. someone may click on "Recommended videos" or "Similar videos" and those would have advertising.

As a video author, you have the option to remove the video. Youtube is primarily a video sharing site, not a money machine.

The poster of that video is Duckworks, who published Dylan Winters's story. Mr. Winter's videos are at http://www.youtube.com/user/dylanwinter1 No sailing there at all: purely trucking and a bit of New Zealand sheep.

The money withheld from the content owner is returned to the advertisers. Google doesn't keep it.

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