Thank you for writing this piece. I too have had bad experiences re copyright on both youtube and daily motion. Each website has a process that works differently, but the copyright challenges are to the same end. In the case of daily motion, when I challenged a takedown I got an immediate reinstatement of my video - with no explanation.

As to the monetisation claim, my guess is that many bogus third-party claims are made, on the premise that most people will feel fear (as you have described) and so not engage in a challenge to claim(s) made against them.

This is an area where people would do well to share their experiences so the pattern(s) can be identified. Thank you (again) for making such a helpful start to that process.