Supreme Court Just Gave YouTube No Excuse to Keep This System

Duration: 14:33

The Supreme Court just rewrote the rules of secondary copyright liability — and almost nobody is talking about what it means for YOU, the creator.

On March 25, 2026, in Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment, the Supreme Court unanimously held that simply knowing your users might infringe copyright is NOT enough to make you liable. The Court killed a 50-year-old legal theory called "knowledge plus material contribution" that had been the foundation of nearly every secondary copyright lawsuit against internet service providers, cloud services, and platforms.

So here's the question I can't stop thinking about: If the legal pressure that built YouTube's three-strike policy just got dramatically reduced... could YouTube finally drop the three-strike system? Could we be standing at the doorway of a creator renaissance — a moment where remixing, fair use, criticism, commentary, and transformative work can flourish without the constant fear of channel termination?

In this video, I break down:

→ What the Supreme Court actually held in Cox v. Sony (and why Justice Thomas's two-track framework changes everything)

→ Justice Sotomayor's blistering concurrence warning that the DMCA safe harbor is now "obsolete"

→ Why YouTube's three-strike policy exists in the first place (spoiler: it's 17 U.S.C. § 512(i))

→ The Viacom v. YouTube origin story that built the modern Content ID empire

→ Whether YouTube can legally relax its repeat infringer policy now (yes) and whether they actually will (...maybe not)

→ The case for a fair-use renaissance — and the very real reasons it might never happen

→ What this ruling means for AI platforms, cloud services, social media, and the entire internet ecosystem

This is one of those rare moments where one Supreme Court decision could ripple outward and reshape how we all create on the internet. Or it could change nothing. I'll walk you through both possibilities.

📺 REQUIRED VIEWING: Before (or after) watching this, do yourself a favor and watch Tom Scott's brilliant "YouTube's copyright system isn't broken. The world's is." → https://youtu.be/1Jwo5qc78QU?si=icKg7_C15nPzJClQ

Tom made this video years ago and it remains the single best explanation of WHY YouTube built the system it did. My video picks up where his leaves off — what happens now that the legal ground underneath that system has shifted?

⚖️ I'm Leonard French, a copyright attorney with 15 years of experience defending creators and breaking down the law that shapes the internet. If you want more deep dives into the cases that actually matter for creators, hit subscribe.

💬 Drop a comment: Do you think YouTube will actually change its policy? Or are the contractual and business pressures too strong? I read everything.

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#Copyright #YouTube #SupremeCourt #FairUse #CreatorEconomy #DMCA #LawfulMasses #CoxVSony #ContentID #LegalAnalysis

00:00 - The Supreme Court Just Gave YouTube Permission to Rethink Everything About Copyright Strikes

01:30 - Why YouTube’s three-strike policy exists — and why the reason just evaporated

03:47 - The Human Cost of Three Strike Policies

05:27 - If Content ID can handle Claims, it can handle Fair Uses

06:06 - What YouTube could do

06:25 - Raise the Strike Threshold

07:12 - Reduce the Strike Window

07:35 - Require Fair Use Screening

08:23 - Separate Strikes and Content ID

08:45 - Adopt Dispute Resolution Procedures

09:46 - What this could mean for content creation

11:08 - Counter-arguments

11:50 - The Time is Now