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"The law to the letter" is a legal fiction. There's your interpretation of what the law is, the content creators' interpretation of what the law is, and you can spend millions of dollars in legal fees and risk billions in damages to find out what the law actually says for your particular case.

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That is - essentially - what I said right above. What the law actually states does still apply in the extreme case - and it applies more truly on a lot of other platforms... but YouTube has essentially preempted most DMCA claims by offering a service that proactively checks for violations - a service in no way required by the DMCA.

It is not required by the DMCA, sure, but it (or the like) is required by the various content owners who have the power to sue (or not sue) YouTube. Following the DMCA's requirements only helps after spending millions of dollars on legal fees and if you manage to persuade the courts. In lieu of that, YouTube has decided to just give IP owners what they want.

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