Just search for 'full album' or 'full movie'.

1. Someone uploads funny/interesting content.

2. Other people (bots maybe) notice that it's popular and download and re-upload it, titling and promoting it so that it ranks above the original in search results. Often the re-uploaders file takedown notices against the original video or other re-uploaders, so they're removed.

3. Repeat step 2 hundreds of times, until any search for "funny/interesting content" returns only a series of almost-identical 240p 15fps cropped, mirrored, or otherwise unwatchable versions of the original video.

I don't know if they condone this because it results in more overall views, or if they're just terrible at fighting it, but it's largely made Youtube useless for its original purpose as a many-to-many video sharing platform.

* skip a 1-3 seconds every so often

* chop it into blocks and re-arrange them, so you watch out of order but still get the gist (1,2,3,4,5 becomes 1,3,2,5,4)

Here are some fun ones based on Shia LeBouf's green screen performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0

- https://vk.com/video-67185996_171327939

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_TuTzzSUb0&t=0s

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4ktEzJvaGM&t=186s

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BLMW3vQV20&t=124s

etc. There is much more we can do, but there are some we can't. For instance phone recorded 3D movie recorded in a cinema from a weird angle.

[0] https://pex.com

The problem is incredibly complex, because Fair Use doesn't have any quantifiable metrics that you can translate into a computer algorithm. The gist of Fair Use is that you have to prove the intent of the uploader trying to rip you off.

As you can imagine, this is a very hard thing to prove and the amount of videos being uploaded every day makes this is even harder to crack.

If you're interested in this problematic, reach out and I will be happy to share more.

I was referring specifically to this? Am I right to infer that DMCAs are so scatter gun that publishers have managed to DMCA themselves?

Yes this has happened multiple times. Notable one that's somewhat recent that comes to mind: https://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-flags-website-piracy-po...

Strategic lawsuits against Fair Use are a form of stifling protected speech.

YouTube would turn into a tumbleweed landscape overnight!

I've often thought YT should just add "No copyright intended" et al as a ContentID trigger though.