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Or all the Google properties, I believe YouTube has the biggest moat and the barrier to exit, for users if not creators, because of all the content on it.

Given that all this content is publicly available, And I believe there were some legal cases, such as LinkedIn v. HiQ one, which, IMNAL, but allowed scraping of public content, I wonder if an entity can legally scrape YouTube and provide non-Google access to it, while preserving creator's copyright?

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Definitely. Youtube is pretty much the only Google service I still use regularly (unless chromecast counts).

I'm pretty sure you will need the creator's permission to re host the video. Otherwise it's just piracy.

In the LinkedIn case the scraping was allowed, I don't think that HiQ is creating a mirror. Also there's a case for LinkedIn not having much copywritable content there, only information.

YouTube's real moat is that after years of operation they're managing to maybe break even, even with Google's insane infra. It's just doesn't seem that profitable to host all the videos for free.

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