There's been a lot of noise online about false copyright strikes and video takedowns on YouTube. Content creators are losing what is often their only source of income to copyright trolls who make claims on their videos, oftentimes having their channels shut down entirely.
These copyright trolls aren't overzealous white knights, protecting the rights of copyright holders. They're opportunists taking advantage of a broken system that allows them to profit from this kind of activity.
How do they profit from false copyright claims? When you make a claim on a YouTube video, from the moment you make the claim, you receive all ad revenue from the video. It doesn't matter if eventually the claim is successfully disputed, because you get to keep the money. Usually it takes so long to get a claim taken down that by the time the ad revenue starts going to the content creator, it's already past the video's most popular--and profitable--period, and the content creator's ability to profit from their work is severely reduced.
Obviously this is a serious problem that not only affects content creators, but also affects Google's ability to profit, as video makers lose confidence in their ability to make money on YouTube, and go elsewhere.
But Google don't need a comprehensive plan to deal with this problem before they take action. An action that can be taken immediately is to stop giving claimants ad revenue when they make a claim. Put the money into an account where it is held until one party or another wins the dispute. This immediately removes the profit motive for copyright trolls, and cuts Google's workload immediately, also restoring content creator's faith in YouTube.
I'm far from the first person to suggest this. I just think that this doesn't need to be part of some sort of grand plan on the part of Google--it's something that can be done in the interim, while they figure out how to deal with this issue completely.
It's like replacing soda with water while you wait to see a nutritionist to sort out your new diet. You don't need to know exactly what you're going do in the future, but you do know it's probably part of the solution you'll come up with in the end, and will have immediate and long-term positive effects.
