Well , how is Vimeo getting away with it (copy rights) ? There site is 100 time's the site youtube was or will ever be and there going down fast with those adds and so on .
I for one have never heard of Vimeo before this thread, once their videos start getting as many as YouTube's does, then the companies will likely start protecting their copyright laws there. The company will need more money to grow and fight all the lawsuits, so they'll start selling ads before their videos until a new site comes along. However, YouTube has become a name synonymous with the internet, like google (who own's them) and I don't see it going away any time soon.