> The difference is that YouTube profits from the videos, EC2 rents generic capacity to someone who could choose to profit from them.

So profit = bad? Do you think that Amazon runs EC2 as a pro-bono effort?

  Amazon                     YouTube
  ------                     -------
  Rents Generic Space        Rents specific space (videos-only)
  Charges Rental Fees        Free rent
  Provides a minimal API     Provides a nice web front-end tailor to specific space
  Profits from rental fees   Profits from adverts in/around the videos

Please explain the huge difference here and how the law should differentiate between one service and another. Is the major difference here that YouTube uses advertising to turn a profit rather than rental fees? Is that really what makes them deserving of losing safe-harbor? Do the GeoCities-type hosting services also fall into this niche because they monetize through advertising rather than fee-collection?

[Note: I've never used EC2 so I don't know what they provide other than a low-level (and maybe a high-level) API into their space]

{edit} Some more points:

* If you don't like that fact that YouTube does not rent generic space and rents space specifically for videos, then how do you rectify more to-the-metal type services that rent space specifically for video, or music distribution, but still profit from rental fees (instead of ads)? Do they qualify the same as YouTube because they are not providing 'generic space?'

* Do you not like that Google possibly profits more from popular videos than from unpopular videos (i.e. you don't like that they profit more or less based on the content of the video)? If this is the case, how is it any different than Amazon EC2 profiting more from someone that serves large files that such up copious amounts of bandwidth if they get to be popular/highly downloaded? {/edit}