Quote Originally Posted by acer5200 View Post
Still, even though they have the author's consent, I can still download it from their site. Now, isn't that technically file sharing?
I'm 99% sure when the author consents to their work being used on youtube they implicitly agree to allow it to be used in any fashion that youtube allows in standard practice. (you would need to contact the youtube legal department to confirm this)

The interesting thing about this discussion is most of non internet copyright law has been codified for years, but most of the internet applications of these laws are either inapplicable or non existant.

One would have to look to the limited case law on the topic to give you an educated opinion on how a judge would rule in specific circumstances.