Think about the scale we're dealing with here - not just of the number of YT videos being put out per day but also the amount of copyrighted work to enforce. There's simply no way even an army of staff can accurately enforce anything but a small subset of what comes out.
Instead of playing favorites, YT chose to use automation to its greatest potential and let the citizenry put pressure on lawmakers to reform the system. I think what they're doing is smart, although perhaps lawmakers are more resistant to reform than YT originally anticipated.