I don't know what the argument is though. You have agreed to this Content ID system and automatically distributing the ad revenue based on YouTube's discretion when you signed up.

Note that the system also has advantages. As a publisher you are protected from lawsuits most of the time, the worst case outcome is that you don't get revenue from a video or that you get banned from YouTube.

I'm not saying that the tradeoff is optimal for creators but I don't see how what YouTube is doing is illegal. Unless you try to assert that you were forced to accept the ToS because YouTube is effectively a monopoly. But I find that a really hard argument to make.

Contracts are limited in what they can enforce. A lesser known example is if you don’t benefit in any way then you can’t form a contract.

Which for example brings up the obvious approach of to sue YouTube for copyright infringement as they don’t have the rights to display your video if their not paying you. I expect you would lose that argument, but it might not be thrown out of court.

But as I said there is some benefit for those posting to YouTube. So it seems like it could well be an enforceable contract.

That’s one argument, but it’s up to the courts to decide if it’s true.

The courts would point out that you’re free to take the video down at any time.

That's irrelevant. There is a legal standard "Arbitrary and Capricious" , where the party makes a business decision out of spite, for no good reason and with no consideration for interests of others.

Google is respobsible for decisions they make, it's their problem that they use faulty automation.

Except you can’t go back and take them down before Google decides not to pay you.

The argument is that the GDPR requires companies to provide human review.

The GDPR is very poorly enforced and regulators have shown no desire to enforce it. At least in the UK, the process requires you to try and get in touch with the company to resolve it and give them 30 days to reply, providing evidence of your attempts (a bit difficult with online forms as opposed to emails - I guess you have to take screenshots of the contact form before you submit?), and if you still don't get a satisfactory response you can raise a complaint with the regulator where from my experience it just goes to a black hole where you're lucky to get a (useless) response in a few months.

No. It just takes a lot of time to deal with all the transgressions.

https://www.enforcementtracker.com/

Disagreed. This link often gets posted as a counterpoint but look at the biggest issue with privacy currently: tracking consent forms. The regulation mandates that any non-essential tracking (as in not required to provide functionality or fulfil legal obligations) should be opt-in and it should be as easy to decline as it is to accept (aka you should provide both an accept and a decline button - hiding the decline option or making it difficult doesn't count). The majority of companies out there fail at that requirement, and it's been almost 4 years since the regulation went into effect and nothing has been done even though those cases should be very straightforward as the evidence is right there on their websites.

Schrems' company Noyb is scanning websites and trying to force companies to do something about it (or potentially face the law).

https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-aims-end-cookie-banner-terror-and-is...