> And thus there's a built-in incentive to cut a deal with the content owners to preemptively prevent the DMCA claims (which are expensive!) by doing this sort of automated policing.
You need to pay a human being at $15/hour or more to spend a few minutes to review the claim and response, on videos that on average are probably making you a dime or less in ad revenue. These companies receive a lot of DMCA claims, most of which are absolutely valid.
How are DMCAs expensive?