It seems sometimes random publishing houses remove videos as well. I had some tribute videos removed 4-5 years ago by "Stage Three Music" which had been up for a while whilst copyrighted videos just stayed. I really don't get why they trawl through old YouTube vids and do that (if it's not on behalf of instructions of the original artist and/or writer at least) and if that action indeed helps an artist or just upsets fans. :shrug: To me it comes across as simply an action of stretching their muscles: "we can do this so we are going to.". If it really improves their or the artists' income or improves/helps the artists' media footprint I seriously doubt.

Maybe Metallica's lead singer did not think his vocals were up to par, or maybe the video was "crappy" and recorded on a "cell phone". Did the band and backing vocals sound fine?