You know, constant access to copyrighted work is not a Maslowian need on a hierarchy for survival.
Streaming video is convenient, but YouTube is a swamp of copyright violation, and I tend to side with makers as opposed to ‘freebertarians’ – “Since this can be free, thanks to the internet, I consider it free …” – and again, YouTube is NOT OBLIGATED to put up every piece of video someone, somewhere, wants to upload for public viewing.
Personally, I want YouTube to hire human moderators to filter YouTube content so that Google could create new jobs to replaced the journalism, newspaper, creative and professional artistic work they killed, but no, it’ll be an algorithm: Algorithms never get sick, never need child care, never need a 401 (k). And YouTube will keep being what people want it to be, with no thought as to if that’s actually good.
The cure for bad regulation isn’t no regulation; the cure for bad regulation is better regulation. And again, the demand that YouTube be an unending font of images of anything one might look for is a) not necessarily what YouTube can and should be and b) Not a human right.
I know that a pro-regulation stance isn’t popular around here, but, really, YouTube is responsible for the content it carries, and if the only way to do that is humans or filters, then it has to be done.
