Actually I do believe that YouTube and similar sites operate in a bit of a grey area of "technical illegality" at the present, however the existence of audience and similar non-professional recordings (in particular) is tolerated by the copyright holders, where infringed, on the basis that (1) most publicity is good publicity, and helps also drive new users to "official product" from which money can be made, and (2) the artists themselves (and by extension their lawyers and publishing companies) maybe do not want the bad press that would accompany prosecutions of fans for sharing such material, since without fans, they would have no existence in the "music business", also they prefer to look more like good guys than bad guys...

I do foresee 2 alternatives down the track (a bit like home video taping TV shows, technically illegal in many countries for a long period in the past - you could technically buy the machine, but it was illegal to use it) - one, come down in a draconian fashion on all unauthorized content on YouTube etc. (force them to take it down), or two, accept it is there, make it legal, and monetize it with ad revenue back to the copyright owners (which is almost the situation today).

I would be interested to know whether those shouting loudest about the technical illegality of these actions can place their hand on their heart and say that if visited tomorrow by the copyright police, said police would not find in their possession a single home-burned CD/digital copy of a commercially released item, or a cassette copy of a vinyl record made in years gone by, or even a video recording made off the TV for purposes other than time shifting - all other cases where the law if applied to the letter would look stupid.

- Tony