Is the video site really a force for good? Andrew Sullivan says yes. I like it too.
A dissenting take from On An Overgrown Path:
Google and YouTube are based on a not dissimilar misapprehension. OK, so both are only too happy to remove content where breach of copyright can be demonstrated, but they are extraordinarily aggressive in the manner in which they attack the soft underbelly of intellectual property rights, and their basic philosophy is that all content should be free.
Insulated from the real world by their newly found billions, it must be nice for Messrs Brin and Page to think this is true. In fact, all content, like any other form of produce, must ultimately be paid for, and if all Google is doing is acting as a supermarket for, or an aggregator of, other people's stolen goods, then in the long run it might have something of a problem.
CORRECTION: Those comments actually come from the Indy's Jeremy Warner. Apologies. The change in the OAOP typeface passed me by completely. [Hat-tip: Jeff]