Movie Tycoon Sues YouTube over Piracy and Exposes Content-ID ‘Caveat’

The thing is that "staydown" is something that Google has already implemented. They could easily track YouTube uploaders as they do, say, accounts accessing Google Cloud Platform. You can bet that people who abuse the GCP don't get to keep creating fake accounts.

They could also turn on Content-ID for any video that is taken down through a legit request. The video is already on the servers. It doesn't need more processing. Indeed, I would guess that Google has pretty good technology for picking up duplicate copies. I rarely see the same video listed in a search with YouTube.

It's almost as if they want people to create the fake account and keep uploading. I've seen this kind of game in other industries where someone has a wink-wink, nudge-nudge agreement with lawbreakers. Scrap metal processors, for instance, used to be very good at not asking questions.

That wink-wink stuff changed when people got too fed up. Now the scrap metal processors are overburdened with plenty of regulation.

It would be smart of Google to embrace some of simple techniques for blocking the very low-grade piracy described in the article. It will save them (and all of us) from overly broad regulation.

They're benefiting from the DMCA coming and going. It's exactly skeezy.

Be careful not to cut your own nose off to spite someone else’s face.

Bad for Google and bad for everyone is still bad.