Copyright is necessary and isn’t the problem here. What is the problem is Youtube’s refusal to require any verification when a copyright claim is made. YouTube has essentially created a society that doesn’t abide by due process because it’s a virtual society and therefore isn’t required to follow the same laws that physical societies are held to. This is a symptom of a much more dangerous problem - as we exist more and more in the online world, we are subject to whatever contrived laws the owners of that world decide to create. Those laws have serious fallout in the real world, like complete loss of income due to bogus copyright claims.
I reject the notion that copyright is necessary, what's necessary is my personal ability to use my devices without random companies being able to use the state to punish me for using an abstract concept that may or may not resemble one that they at some point also used. If you would like to make money from your art there are options such as commisions, but the onus is on you to find a business model that works, it is not for the government to be creating artificial monopolies to facilitate a business model that is incompatible with reality.
Copyright is enshrined in law. You don’t get the choice of picking and choosing to abide by it or not. The artificial monopolies (they’re not artificial btw) are guaranteed by those laws.
Should an artist want to not register copyright for their works, they are 100% free to do so.
They won’t make any money, but that’s their choice.
You may not agree with the system, but it’s the law.
In this single case, this is actually the system working as it should.
The DMCA law itself says the host can't require any such verification, and if YT started requiring it for ContentID, the complainers could just start sending regular DMCA takedowns.
which is better, because regular DMCA claims comes with a legal repercussion risk - you cannot file a false DMCA claim without punishment from the law.
But youtube contentID claim is not DMCA, and has no punishment attached for a wrong claim.
