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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

A contract in the US can't override tort law. Material change without consideration is de facto no go.

This is pretty standard torts 101. You can say whatever you want in a contract but that doesn't mean the clause is valid. Furthermore ToS fall under sticker contracts which have a different level of scrutiny especially in regards to material changes post facto.

YouTube knows this. This is why they are trying to get Blender to sign a new contract. If your claim above was correct, YouTube would of simply already monetized the channel and unblocked the videos.

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There was no material consideration to begin with. If I agree to paint your house for free, and put it in writing, and then later decide not to (or decide not to unless you agree to some post-hoc rule), you have no tort against me -- there was no consideration to begin with.

But you can't agree to paint my house for free, decide you would rather be paid halfway through and then prevent me from entering my house until I pay you.

That's a bit of a clumsy analogy, but the issue here is the immediate blocking of content and then demanding of pay. If Youtube instead said "Hey, you have 90 days to remove your content or let us monetize it" that would be a bit different.

Your youtube channel is Google's property. Your content is yours. You can remove them anytime. But your YouTube channel is not your house!

As much as I’d like to buy into this interpretation, isn’t the fact that youtube is an ongoing developed and supported service that consideration?

As in, their consideration here is “we continue to, without any pricetag, host your videos for free on a website receiving ongoing updates and development, AND FURTHER allow you to continue to upload and store new content, despite either and both being complete deadweight cost for us?”

The consideration being the right to indefinitely add more to the platform and benefit from those updates

> If your claim above was correct, YouTube would of simply already monetized the channel and unblocked the videos.

No, they can't do that, but they can end the service until a new contract is signed. Which is exactly what happened.

The YT ToS does not create an obligation on YT's part to serve your videos.

> The YT ToS does not create an obligation on YT's part to serve your videos.

Correct. The issue here is that they blocked the videos (not plain removal) with no warning or stated limit, and then demanded monetization to unblock the videos, thus creating a duress situation.

If YouTube had a stated policy saying "Videos getting over 250k views must be monetized" or sent a 90 day warning the situation would be different.

Instead YouTube blocked the videos without warning and then demanded a new monetization contract to restore service. That reeks of a duress case.

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