"However, YouTube expects that by removing the option to monetize these sorts of videos themselves, some copyright holders will instead just leave them alone."
Uh, no. Why would copyright holders do that?
Uh, no. Why would copyright holders do that?
The infringing 'works' are white noise.
Literally. I make open source software plugins and use Logic's signal generator sometimes to demonstrate the spectral content of these plugins. I'll get copyright strikes specifically for the purpose of hijacking the ad revenue of these videos, specifying that it's the noise (or filtered noise) content of the video.
They don't try to knock the video off YouTube, they are trying to mass claim all white noise on the platform to get whatever revenue they can until the real creator reassert their rights to their original content (at some risk: you are saying 'no, that is original content' to the YouTube machine and depending on the adversary to withdraw their claim in hopes of finding someone who is paying less attention)
This would directly affect those trolls, and those guys would indeed skulk away: it's what they do when you challenge them, because they want to operate without calling attention to themselves.