Jonathan McIntosh's widely watched remix entitled "Buffy vs Edward" has been on YouTube for years, and in that time it racked up more than 3 million views and became a "poster boy" for why remixes needed to be protected from overreaching copyright law in the digital age.

In October, his video was the object of a takedown from Lionsgate. McIntosh wrote about his saga earlier this week (an article that we subsequently ran on Ars), and in it he highlighted how broken the DMCA takedown system is. YouTube's much-vaunted "Content ID" system was opaque and mystifying in its behavior, and it ultimately did little to protect a small creator in this situation.

Yesterday, McIntosh's video was put back up. But he isn't happy about how it all went down, and understandably so. At one point, Lionsgate actually agreed to leave his video up in return for a cut of ad revenue; that deal struck McIntosh and other advocates as something of a shakedown. "That's an Awfully Nice Video," wrote Parker Higgins at EFF yesterday. "It'd Be a Shame if Something Happened to it..."

In an e-mail exchange with Ars, McIntosh said it particularly sticks in his craw that there won't be any repercussions for Lionsgate.

"I'm happy that 'Buffy vs Edward' is back on YouTube but what's to stop this sort of thing from happening again?" asked McIntosh. "Will Lionsgate face any repercussions for abusing YouTube's system and sending this bogus DMCA takedown? And what about all the other remixers and fan vidders who might not know as much about fair use or don't have access to a lawyer? How many users will just accept the shady monetization shakedown deal on their fair use works because they are afraid if they don't they might lose their video or have their entire channel deleted?"

Holding copyright owners accountable for outrageous takedowns is possible on paper but virtually impossible in reality. The most vigorous attempt to do so is EFF's Lenz v. Universal "dancing baby" lawsuit, and that case has been dragging on for five years now and still hasn't gone to trial. Financial penalties for the company issuing the takedown in that case are still far away and will be small if they come at all. And needless to say, many YouTube users can't avail themselves of the legal resources available to Lenz.