Just because this is another claim (which possibly is a perfectly valid one) doesn't mean automatic (or not) copyright claims are destroying the free world. Youtube scans 100 years of video every day with ContentID. It works.
The problem is not the fact that they scan and (correctly) ignore a vast bulk of material. It's a question of what false positives it hits, and how important those false positives are.
So far we've had two high profile false positives one of which is directly relevant to American civic life.
At some point if your errors are high profile enough, or damaging enough, it's irrelevant how few errors you're making, damage is being done.
This is a problem, and it needs to be dealt with.
Note I haven't seen anywhere yet that the claim related to this story is actually incorrect? DNC cable coverage is perfectly copyrightable and you don't have an inherit right to watch NBC's coverage on YouTube of a political convention.
The majority of copyright usage on Youtube is probably illegal or unsanctioned. Most of the time Youtube is doing the right thing and taking down bad videos.
But for the small number of people who are playing by the rules, and trying to do the thing they have asked us to do, you can't keep making them jump through hoops. They are punishing the good guys!
I'm sure the large majority of people are playing by the rules, just these small exceptions always keep getting posted to HN like they are the end of the world, but in reality they are the extremely small exception.