How should businesses like YouTube balance the economic costs of copyright infringement, the psychological motivations of users who share or consume free content, and the ethical responsibility to respect creators’ rights?
In your response, draw on at least two different disciplinary perspectives—for example:
Economics: Consider opportunity costs, lost revenue, incentives, and market impact.
Psychology: Consider why people rationalize downloading or sharing copyrighted content (e.g., social norms, “everyone does it,” or instant gratification).
Ethics: Consider fairness, integrity, and the Golden Rule.
Law/Business Strategy: Consider the role of regulation, risk, and partnerships.
Write a 250 word post analyzing this case from more than one perspective and propose a solution that a business like YouTube could implement to reduce piracy while still supporting creativity, innovation, and user engagement.
From a Business Strategy perspective, the goal is to transform pirated traffic from a liability into a controlled asset. The current reactive "takedown" model (like Content ID) is adversarial.
Proposed Solution: Smart Monetization Bridge
YouTube should implement a Smart Monetization Bridge that utilizes AI to automatically detect infringing content, but instead of immediate removal, it imposes a new commercial reality:
Mandatory Monetization: All revenue generated by the unauthorized video (through advertising) is split 100% to the original rights holder, eliminating the economic incentive for the infringer.
Engagement Bonus: The infringing upload is not removed, preserving the user engagement and traffic (the psychological asset). The original rights holder receives an "engagement bonus" for every 100,000 views driven by the pirated video, recognizing the promotional value.
Tiered Takedown: The platform offers the infringer a "two-strike" policy: first strike results in 100% monetization for the creator; the second strike results in a full takedown and channel suspension.
Sample Answer
The challenge for platforms like YouTube in managing copyright infringement is a delicate balance between market incentives and user behavior.
Economically, piracy creates a massive opportunity cost, directly eroding the revenue streams of content creators and deterring large-scale, high-quality content investment. Platforms are ethically obligated to respect property rights, but outright censorship risks alienating a user base psychologically motivated by the premise of instant gratification and the "social norming" bias (the belief that if content is widely available, it is permissible to consume it for free). This demand for zero-cost, immediate content is a powerful psychological driver that platforms must harness, not fight.