Comment Has its uses (Score 4, Interesting) 302
Regardless of the licensing, a lot of the content on the site is useful because its just unavailable otherwise.
I wonder this about Youtube. What if it was just shutdown? At this point you can laugh but it has historical value. Beyond the cat videos there are documentaries, content from laserdisc, obscure commercials, very useful user howtos and reviews etc. This list goes on and on. If all you search for on youtube is funny videos then you are missing out on a treasure trove of content that spans many decades.
At some point I think the site will have to become a public archive. Which it kind of already is, it just needs the legal status so that some greedy corporation can't just turn off the switch. Now if only we could cut down on the crap that is a result of everyone trying to monetize youtube. But I guess that's wishful thinking because without that Google might just shut down Youtube outright.