The DMCA is draconian but YouTube’s system is insidious. The DMCA forces YouTube to take down content upon receipt of a valid takedown notice but it also requires it to put the content back up within 10 days of a counter-notice, at which point if the original complaining party wants to do more they can take it to court.

In contrast, YouTube’s content ID and manual copyright claim system can be more lenient in that it’s less likely to wind up in court as the rights holder can simply demonetize the content or divert monetization to them. However it’s open to a lot of fraud, abuse, conflicts of interest, and Kafkaesque appeals systems.

I have a friend who has ~1M subscribers. He specifically licensed music from an artist for his video intro and outro. Now, every few months out of the blue he gets dozens to hundreds of Content ID claims from obscure music rights management companies who have added remixes of that work to their Content ID databases. Monetization is instantly diverted to these companies. He appeals. The money is not held in escrow pending appeal – the company gets to keep it no matter what. So the first couple of appeals get decided by the company claiming the content. Usually about a week or two later he gets actual YT support to help or he causes enough stink on social media that a YT rep will look at it and fix it. But he’s lost thousands of dollars over this shit.