Is YouTube Starting To Die?

YouTube has become the de-facto video sharing service on the internet. Recently though, they received a letter from Comedy Central and were forced to remove clips from their service due to DMCA violations. I've already found some of my videos that are now dead links, and will start removing them.

My question to Comedy Central: Why? There were a ton of The Daily Show and Colbert Report clips there, and countless people have started to watch the show because of it. I don't know how many times on Digg.com someone commented how they had never seen either of the shows and now watch. In fact, it was said that the Colbert Report was using a pretty nifty viral marketing strategy on YouTube - flood the service with your clips, and the people will watch the show.

There were other shows up there too, including but not limited to South Park and Comedy Central Presents. I understand that they would want full episodes taken down, but 0-5 minute clips? Those are free advertisement in the greatest sense. Comedy Central doesn't pay for someone to post them, doesn't pay for advertising, and doesn't pay for the bandwidth when they are viewed, and it only increases viewers.

One thing that people were worried about when Google purchased YouTube was it becoming like Google Video. And I think it is starting too.