My small rant on being a "defender of the free world"!

I like to create.  Unfortunately, my personal talents and abilities limit my creation to working mostly with other artists works.  My YouTube channel is mostly videos that I have taken, but I like to do those things called “mashups”.  Even if I were to video tape myself playing the piano of a published piece of music, there is a good chance I will get a copyright notice at the very least to acknowledge it’s from a 3rd party and at the worse, you are an evil company like Viacom who will cause you to get a complete copyright strike and get banned from quality YouTube uploads for at least 6 months.
With the adoption of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) began my demise already in the creative video & free world.  I’ve been on the net longer than most people. I’m a self-admitted software pirate and music pirate, which in my opinion is fine as long as it’s personal use and I’m not sharing my talents or distributing my rips.  I have never in my life paid for digital music (by way of downloading on iTunes or other sources) and have never bought software.  I am also married to someone who considers one of his work-related skills as a software developer.  Some might see that a total contradiction.  However, he told me he doesn’t care if the little guy cracks the software and pirates it.  Especially his latest piece. All that matters is that his main target, businesses, generally operate ethically and will purchase licenses appropriately.  In his opinion this is all that matters.  I hold that same opinion.
Software and music downloads aside, today I’m ranting about YouTube.  I’m a YouTube partner, I have been a member since their inception when Google Video acquired the service. Previous I had been a member of Google Video for many years. I naturally was forced to re-download all my Google uploads and re-up them to YouTube in 2006.  One of my first long published mashups of SpongeBob had my account “permanently banned” in 2007 because Viacom challenged my creation, which simply took one episode, summarized it to a popular song at the time. Nothing bad.  For cripes sake I was probably one of the first on YouTube with a popular mashup.  In fact it was a very popular video.  It took 3 years and the implementation of the Fair Use Act and whatever else before YouTube finally unbanned my account.  Since then, I’ve only incurred one additional copyright strike and a 6 month ban because of the one hit wonder “PSY”.
This morning I got a notice in my email that I had a video blocked globally and that there might be account implications.  Instantly I just got flaming pissed.  Thankfully I went in, and my account is still in good standing with no violations.  Today’s asshat company, FOX.  I dared use a 15 second clip of Jim Carrey from Me, Myself and Irene, where the sound was almost completely muted.  It just backed a funny phone call I had.  I don’t generally put anything on YouTube for profit.  I make 5 cents a year.  That’s it.  And, Google has never deposited a dime as far as I know.  I can see pulling something like that if I was raking in the $$$ or using it for malicious purposes, but no, I was not.  To me, that is a completely selfish, dickheaded, fucked up copyright violation.
I have no problem using major artists most of the time. All I have to do is acknowledge the use of 3rd party sources and I cannot monetize, which doesn’t even matter.  I use Owl City, Eminem, various Disney songs, and god knows, a bunch of others I can’t think of.  They have no problem.  Worst case scenario UMG may block my video in Germany which is completely ridiculous.  Why Germany? LOL.  If you have a home video with a damn show on the background, you have to go in and acknowledge 3rd party use.  Whatever, it’s fine if it doesn’t affect my video or my account.
I’m just going to start self-hosting my stuff.  I refuse to support any company or artist who doesn’t allow the “little guy” to use a little creative use of their work as long as it’s not for a bad cause or money.  So, I knew never to mess with any Viacom property a long time ago (Most Nickelodeon stuff), and now I know that I can’t use FOX stuff.  However, there is no guide to who’s stuff you can use without worry and who you can’t. It’s hit or miss and that is a dangerous world to play in when you’ve built an account that has now been around for going on 9 years on YouTube.  I need to make sure I upload stuff to test accounts first before I publish.  I wish there was just a complete guide of who not to mess with out there. I hate not knowing.
So yes, that is my mixed rant for the day.  Grr.