Of course artists aren't forced to do anything. And of course they aren't owed anything by default. But that's beside the point.
With respect, I don't think it's besides the point. At no point in my life did I ever feel that anyone owed me compensation for art directly unless they were commissioning the art specifically. The idea that we can feel entitled to anything because we've created art that we assign value to ourselves doesn't hold a lot of water; EVEN if that art is shared. I think anyone with a artistic bone in their body would love to be an artist and get a living from it, but that's just not realistic because no matter how much we want it to be otherwise, Capitalism and our society does not value art the same way we value a carpenter or shoe maker. Feeling entitled to money any time we can prove someone consumed our art (which does not deprive us or others) is not logical any more than a renaissance artist sitting by his sculpture with a ledger. Art galleries do not track who looked at what art and pay the artists for each view, even though they make money from the content they host.
The point is that some artist's material is being used by third parties for the immense benefit of these third parties.
Abstractly, I agree. Realistically, as I said, these changes can't really be stopped and information flow is just a lot more free than it was for all of human history. This is BECAUSE of the work that google does, not in spite of it. They profit by being a content upload and delivery service, not by stealing and selling the music of others. Period.
Once they have done that it just confirms very clearly that they attribute value to that content, lots of value. At that point the artist has every right to expect their fair share of the spoils.
Google adding ad and metric revenue on top of all content is not the same thing as assuming a specific value for any specific content, nor is it the same as directly stealing and selling use/access of someone's content.
Well, here we are moving closer to agreement. I recognise that you at least identify a considerbale flaw in the way things are currently handled, and allowed to be handled. I think most of us are probably much more in agreement than we realise. I think there's a general aspiration amongst us for the music world that things should be much better. Despite accusations by others that some here do not care about musicians, I find that a little far-fetched.
IMO, what happens when a system goes through large-scale changes is that it creates tensions. In the worst possible case these tensions have a polarising effect and people find themselves pushed into groups of "changers" versus "rectionaries". I think when a situation is strongly polarising it's a clear indication of an imbalance which must be addressed. People's grievances cannot be ignored or talked down in the name of change and having to adapt.
It's not good for wider society.
Well, I look at it differently than lots of folks here. You say it's not good for society, and I see society benefiting immensely from these systems. As I said, the very stuff we're talking about here is also the same stuff that totally enables other artists like us to upload, produce, promote and earn a living from content. If a popular artist wanted to, not only could they use this platform to distribute, become known, and keep in touch with fans, they can also take it upon themselves to police their own content that makes it to the systems from other sources. If they see their art on youtube monetized for some thief, they can immediately take ownership and start receiving the money that would have gone to the up-loader. In a lot of cases this is even somewhat retroactive should a dispute arise. Instead of being lazy and expecting checks to show up because your friendly recording group has your best interests at heart (yea, right) you could be using this system to do it yourself. It just means we have to adapt and that the old business models (which never worked that well for artists anyway) need to go the way of the coal miner, carriage driver, or any number of other professions, artistic or not.
It's both good and bad that users can monetize content directly. I spoke of the negative bathwater without also mentioning the baby we don't necessarily want to throw out. Google is not a thief in the night the way recording groups would say, and in fact is doing more to personally empower artists than any of the greedy corporate music labels ever did or wanted to.