I don't believe this is true. Every legitimate YouTube fair use case that I've seen go to court has gone in favor of the fair user.

The biggest name one so far is the H3H3 trial.[1] One that looks to be settled soon is Akilah Hughes suing Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), where all that Benjamin does is edit together two of Hughes videos with the only original addition being a new title. This is almost certainly going to go in favor of Sargon, yet YouTube's algorithms turned up to the nth degree would almost certainly have blocked it.[2]

If you go outside of YouTube, fair use law in the United States is very broad. Just look at what Richard Prince does with others' art. [3]

edit: added links

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41037631/youtube-stars...

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LMgGBDZbJY

3. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/18/instagram...

> The real problem lies in the laws it relies on, namely the extremely stringent copyright laws and the weird fair use.

Real problem is the negative incentive to be correct.

The rule penalise you harshly if you serve copyrighted content, but there is nothing if you decide to not serve non-copyrighted content and there is so much content on the internet, that "market pressure" simply isn't going to work. If you are a small publisher of free content, there is a huge risk for content platform to serve your content and no reward if they do.

And that's the best case scenario, where all actors have good intentions. But in the real world we know that large copyright holder are very often bulk claiming bulk content. There is no penalty, so that would be crazy for them no to do it.

The laws is also talking about terrorist content and the need to remove it within 1 hour or risk up to 4% turnover fine ! There is not going to be any manual check done within 1 hour, and anyway the risk is so great you may as well have a blanket no-question ask removal policy.

I fail to see the "good intentions in mind" you mention. MEP are some of the most successful politicians, they would be Olympic level is it was a sport. Their field of expertise is the people and public relation. I can believe they are naive with technology (like encryption or monitoring actual capabilities) but I can't accept they are candid about businesses or individual motivations. Any negative consequence of this law is there on purpose.

> I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind

I disagree, no other utility is blamed for the actions of its users, if I use an electric drill to hurt some one I am at fault not my electricity provider, but if I do something illegal on the internet like piracy its some how my internet providers fault?

I also don't like making excuses for policy makers who "don't understand the internet", its not the 90s, ignorance is no longer an excuse, these people know what the internet is, and they know exactly what they are doing.

Are you basing this on law in the EU? Because as far as I know, "fair use" is purely a US thing that doesn't even exist in the EU -- although specific countries may have laws that do somewhat similar things.

If rights-holders and/or YouTube had to pay a monetary penalty every time they screwed up (by taking down content that was fair use), perhaps it might level the playing field?

Fair use (in the US) is actually designed to provide for the ability to comment on, or criticize another work. You can’t do that effectively without showing the subject matter you are discussing.

There are absolutely well defined “fair use” exceptions which a stringent filter will block.

> Other than yes, the most frequent answer I get is "I don't know, it depends.

This is the only answer a lawyer will basically ever give you.

> I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind

the first time around? _maybe_

after the enormous backslash and numerous expert opinion pieces decrying the exact problems of the proposal? _hardly_

> I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind.

"He looked down at the broad steps they were climbing. They were something of a novelty; each one was built out of large stone letters. The one he was just stepping on to, for example, read: I Meant It For The Best. The next one was: I Thought You’d Like It. Eric was standing on: For the Sake of the Children. “Weird, isn’t it?” he said. “Why do it like this?” “I think they’re meant to be good intentions,” said Rincewind. This was a road to Hell, and demons were, after all, traditionalists. And, while they are of course irredeemably evil, they are not always bad. And so Rincewind stepped off We Are Equal Opportunity Employers and through a wall, which healed up behind him, and into the world."

That's an interesting point. It's true that the issue wouldn't be quite as terrible if IP laws were more reasonable to begin with. We shouldn't have to wait for literal centuries before a work becomes public domain for instance.

>I may be naive in saying this, but I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind.

I disagree. This law was made with the intention of being selectively enforced. This is never a good intention.

Fair use has a much narrower definition in the EU, in addition to varying from country to country.

>> 2. Fair use almost definitely does not apply to most youtube content : if you use content other people made (video games or music immediately come to mind) you are infringing copyright holder rights.

Have you read the YouTube terms for original content uploaded by individuals? I'm not so sure doing remixes isn't allowed. If you don't want people doing that to your stuff, keep it off YouTube. I could be wrong, it's been many years since I read their ToS.

"but I believe the law is made with good intentions in mind"

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Why force the platform to enforce? Shouldn’t the copyright owner be required to protect their own rights rather than having others do it for them?