Originally Posted by kane

Something like this has been in the works for a while. Youtube got famous and made its owners millions by using other people's content without their permission (stealing it). Google knew there would be legal issues with the site and as soon as they owned it they started striking deals with many companies. There have been several other companies that have sued, but they just did so to get their content removed. What sucks is that Youtube hides behind the law saying they are just a host and essentially they put the burden on the content owners to police their site and report when they find their content on it.

Sites like Youtube, while fun, are a bane on the webmaster's of the world because they teach visitors that you can get anything you want for free and that sharing and stealing content is perfectly fine.