If Google is being a little more draconian with YouTube stuff than before, then perhaps its because they've been involved in a fairly tense legal stand-off with Viacom - and numerous other cases in Europe. Viacom claimed that Google was not doing enough to police the copyright issues, etc., etc.

You can use all the arguments you want but, in the end, if you've posted someone else's intellectual property without their permission, then that person is entitled to have your posting removed.

There's always been an assumption on the part of many, many people that because something is on the internet, the normal laws of ownership and copyright don't apply. But they do - just as much as anywhere else. The net is more diffuse, and is just so much more difficult to police.