Youtube decided to enter into this agreement with Rumblefish. If Youtube outsouces this abuse, does that put Youtube in the clear? See also: US Army outsourcing to Blackwater, etc. It's too easy to avoid responsibility this way.
OK, but there wasn't actually any abuse. Youtube owns the site. Putting ads on some page and giving part of the proceeds to any company they want is completely within their rights.
Is Reddit evil because they don't share the ad income from a particular thread with the submitter? Doesn't make much sense to me.
If reddit offered you ad income (and there are people who make a living off making youtube videos), then took it away arbitrarily and gave the income instead to a big company that claimed copyright over random bits of birdsong, without any appeal process, then that would be at best broken and at worst abusive, yes. Also, not much sense either.
Youtube only offers you ad income if you register (and are accepted) with their Partner Program, not to any random user. The uploader said and so ads would be placed on my video, which means there weren't any ads before, which means he wasn't offered any ad income. They took nothing away from her/him.
The only thing YT did was:
1. Add ads to a video hosted on their website
2. Take part of their ad income and give it to some company
That was Rumblefish, not Youtube. Youtube was a victim of that, since they could've made more money by simply putting the ads and not sharing them with Rumblefish.
Youtube decided to enter into this agreement with Rumblefish. If Youtube outsouces this abuse, does that put Youtube in the clear? See also: US Army outsourcing to Blackwater, etc. It's too easy to avoid responsibility this way.