I think the whole Piracy vs the RIAA is a moot point as time goes on.
The only thing prosecution of music proved to the RIAA is that if you do it to the public en masse, you are going to alienate customers, and bands learned the hard way (Metallica, et al) that if you sit there and act like everyone is stealing you music, you are going to drive your revenue into the ground because people won't buy your shit.
There has been no sustainable research to prove piracy has taken money away from the recording industry, that can actually be believed. The reason they are losing money is because
A. They put out the same shitty music all the time, same recycled garbage from auto-tuned teenagers who couldn't hold a note to save their life.
B. Alienation from anti piracy campaigns, legal actions, Sony root-kit debacle, etc.
The Internet is changing the scope of the music industry and putting more power back into the hands of the artists as it is. There are tons of sites where people can upload their music to be distributed for free, or for a decent fee. People can still preview more than 10 seconds of a track also.
That takes money out of the RIAA's pocket and they don't like it, and being spoiled greedy idiots they will do anything to recoup their losses, including suing 12 year olds for $10,000 or whatever.
When the RIAA finally goes under, or is forced to save itself via a radical restructuring or transformation of its business model, it will be because they failed as a viable industry. They saw the times, resisted change and REFUSED to adapt. When you put out the same shitty garbage it will always reach a point where people just stop buying. They may like it enough to steal it, but that's about it. If people don't feel like your product is worth the money, your business will fail.
There is a disturbing trend lately with not letting companies in the USA fail as it is.. Now there are some good reasons behind it, and many fine points to debate at how to do it, or how it could have been done better.. But there is no free market capitalism if businesses are not aloud to drive themselves into the ground.. I hope the RIAA is allowed to go down in flames when they finally reach the stages of final death, years from now. A new and better organization will step in and rebuild the recording industry in a manner consistent with the times and demands of fans. Hopefully they will rebuild it in such a manner that it can change and adapt as the times change too.
As far as Youtube, the law is the law.. Straight up putting music or videos of movies and TV shows or whatever on youtube is against the law. They have a right to do what they will with their service, but I think it is pure conjecture for us to say they were forced or not forced into obeying the law, and it is not their choice, etc.. Youtube has always had policies in line with the law, as it should be, stepping up enforcement isn't going to endager the popularity of the service at all.
You are still allowed by public use to do all kinds of things, such as AMV clips and all the other fan generated content that are projects based on one or many IP's. That kind of stuff is not going to dissappear but let's face it..
Most people just go to youtube to look at animals do stupid shit for 3 hours, or retarded people doing stupid stuff resulting in injury.. And watch other peoples emo ass video blogs about how shitty their life is and what's wrong with the world..