YouTube recently updated their terms of service to say that by uploading content to them, this gave them a “worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website.” The link above clarifies exactly what this means (including a response from YouTube’s marketing manager.)
That’s all well and good but the important thing is that this has led to a response from people on YouTube including a shirtless cowboy (!) who defends YouTube’s new policy and many many others who take on this guy’s points very eloquently.
J.