That's right. Nothing has changed that now makes having those videos on there illegal. Google isn't "giving in" to anyone. It was always copyright infringement to post those videos, and now that it's Google involved, they have enough to lose to make sure that they don't get sued by the various "owners" of the material (i.e. the NFL for instance...)
You know that disclaimer that they always have (the contents of this broadcast are the property of the NFL and can only be used for personal entertainment purposes) or something like that? Well, this is exactly what that message is talking about.
It certainly was cool to have all that stuff though. But this is just like Napster. Other sites will pop up with the same content...