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Comment by jessaustin | Hacker News Reader

In USA civil courts the wealthier party typically wins. Alphabet is going to be the wealthier party in most cases. Certainly more than "cdrom.com". This was one of the advantages cited back when Google purchased YouTube.

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/poor-people-dont-stand-a-c...

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So why does Google bother with the false-positive heavy with draconian penalties ContentID stuff then?

Oh, because Record Companies are still bigger than people who create content for YouTube.

Yes, "why" is a great question to ask, because ISTM Alphabet benefits from being able to blame an essentially unappealable process while it curates content uploaded to its platform by creators. I'm a rancher, and like Alphabet I prefer not to get in extended arguments with my livestock.

If blame for the excesses of curation couldn't be offloaded to third parties, creators could form a class for enterprising attorneys.

Sure, it's also good to have a ready defense against litigious record companies, but large firms don't have to have just one reason for doing things in particular ways. It is easy to imagine an alternative to the "ContentID" system that would be less capricious and would still make record companies happy.

I think it mostly boils down to business loss that they would otherwise incur if they set themselves against those companies and thought them tooth and nail (the actual lawsuit cost would be insignificant). Meaning, no Google/Youtube Music deals with Viacom and potentially other RIAA members.

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