It's not entirely clear what type of process actually lead YouTube to terminate this channel, so we can't know either.
> there are other extra jurisdictional mechanisms that Google employ to make your life difficult as a creator.
That's not quite true. The DMCA is a very strict mechanism. You get a notice, you take down the content, and if the uploader isn't happy with that, they have to sue the claimant.
Of course, Youtubes process is streamlined for its own interests and the interests of big corporate copyright hoarders. But it's not designed to bully creators.
The problem isn't really the process in itself, it's how Google applies it and the fact that Youtube doesn't seem to care that much for its creators.
This is kinda missing the point: to appease Viacom and the other media companies when Google took over years ago, they set up a parallel but separate system for processing copyright claims that is in addition the DMCA.
A creator can have up to three strikes, with them disappearing over the course of time if they don't get more strikes. Contested copyright strikes may be elevated to DMCA requests if YouTube finds in favor of the creator, but it's not required.
If you run out of those strikes, your channel is immediately shut down. It's possible (especially with a large backlog of videos) to exceed this strike count before you can use their tools to argue against the strikes. When this happens, your account is shut down, and a "grace" timer is enabled to allow you to try and challenge the copyright strikes (one at a time). If that grace period passes and you're still out of strikes (don't dare to take a vacation), the only remaining choice is to appeal to the public.
When Github was sent a DMCA for the PopcornTime repo, PopcornTime was able to submit a counter DMCA which allowed the repo to be reinstated. Then, if the repo was really in violation, it had to be proven in court by the original claimant. Youtube doesn't allow creators to file a counter DMCA.
The same thing happened here. The creator issued a counter claim, and his channel is currently still up and unaffected https://www.youtube.com/c/GarethEvansYT
Youtube does allow DMCA counter claims because they legally have to. Youtube has absolutely no wiggle room with DMCA. No amount of complaining to them can ever change that, either. You have to get the laws changed.
Here and elsewhere in this thread, you're exaggerating the power of the DMCA over YouTube. The only consequence to YouTube if they fail to follow along with the DMCA takedown notice/counter-notice procedure is that they lose safe harbor protection against being held liable for their users copyright infringement. In a case where YouTube is overzealously removing content that is not actually infringing, they really aren't at much risk of that somehow leading to them being sued for infringement. And you can bet that their Terms of Service adequately indemnify them against any torts their users might come after them for related to such behavior.
> they lose safe harbor protection against being held liable for their users copyright infringement. In a case where YouTube is overzealously removing content that is not actually infringing,
Do you understand that the content in the submission is infringing? And not just to the civil level but to the criminal level? And so YouTube losing safe harbor would be huge.
> And so YouTube losing safe harbor would be huge.
No, it wouldn't, because YouTube is actually removing the content. So they're not going to get sued for infringement, and other parts of the DMCA still protect them even when they operate outside the bounds of the takedown notice procedure.
> there are other extra jurisdictional mechanisms that Google employ to make your life difficult as a creator.
That's not quite true. The DMCA is a very strict mechanism. You get a notice, you take down the content, and if the uploader isn't happy with that, they have to sue the claimant.
Of course, Youtubes process is streamlined for its own interests and the interests of big corporate copyright hoarders. But it's not designed to bully creators.
The problem isn't really the process in itself, it's how Google applies it and the fact that Youtube doesn't seem to care that much for its creators.