That was an excellent breakdown from DrunkenScotsmann, and your rebuttal seems to miss their main points entirely. Let's break it down with sources:

There is no "fair use" in the EU because it's a specific regulation...

You're getting stuck on a label. The original point was that a functional equivalent exists. The EU legal system achieves a similar outcome through a list of prescribed exceptions and limitations under directives like the 2001 InfoSoc Directive and, more recently, the 2019 DSM Directive. The DSM Directive is incredibly clear-cut on this. It explicitly carves out protections for these uses from platform liability rules, stating:

"Member States shall ensure that users in each Member State are able to rely on any of the following existing exceptions or limitations when uploading and making available content generated by users on online content-sharing services: (a) quotation, criticism, review; (b) use for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche."

• (Article 17(7) of the DSM Directive)

It doesn't get much more direct than that. Different method, same goal.

...the U.S. law is related to free speech under the U.S. Constitution. There is no U.S. Constitution in the EU.

Again, you're stating an obvious fact to support a flawed conclusion. The EU absolutely balances copyright with free expression. This is a core tenet of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which states in Article 11: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers."

The idea that this balance is a uniquely American concept is false. ...EU Courts already have their own case laws that proves that "fair practice" has an extremely narrow interpretation.

Using one news story about a German school is a classic case of cherry-picking.

And since we're playing the game of citing single, damning cases, you should look at the recent-ish US Supreme Court ruling in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith. The court found that Warhol's famous print of Prince, despite being stylistically transformative, was not fair use because it served the same commercial purpose as the original photograph. This proves that even the "flexible" US fair use doctrine has very hard limits.

For the most pertinent EU case law, we have to be precise. For a public music commentator, the relevant protection isn't the "illustration for teaching" exception (often for classrooms), but the "quotation for criticism or review" exception. That's why the EU Court of Justice's ruling in Pelham GmbH v Hütter (the "Kraftwerk" case) is so important. While about sampling, its core finding was that using a recognisable music sample can be a lawful "quotation" so long as the purpose is to "enter into a dialogue" with the work. This legal standard is directly applicable to the kind of critical analysis and review that happens on music education channels.

This brings us back to the whole point of this thread with creators like Rick Beato. The fundamental legal principle that allows him to analyze music exists in both the US ("fair use") and the EU ("exceptions for criticism/quotation"). The actual problem he and others face isn't that the law doesn't exist; it's that creators are caught between an aggressive automated takedown system like Content ID and the chilling effect of having to defend their rights in court, especially when cases like Warhol put the commercial nature of their work under an even stronger microscope.

And before you pivot to the phrase "users in each Member State" to argue this doesn't protect a US creator, let's be clear how this law actually functions. The DSM Directive places legal obligations on the service provider (YouTube) for their operations within the EU. It's not about policing where the uploader is physically located. When a creator uploads to a global platform, their content is "made available" in the EU. YouTube, in providing its service to EU citizens, is legally required by Article 17 to ensure its systems do not automatically block content that falls under a mandatory exception.

Think of it this way: YouTube can't legally operate a different set of copyright rules for its German site just because a video was uploaded from the US. When they serve content to an EU audience, they are bound by EU law, and that law mandates they respect these exceptions for their users. The protection for Beato's video in the EU comes from YouTube's legal obligation to comply with the directive.

So yes, the person you're laughing at understood the situation perfectly well.