There was a vociferous but somehow under the radar outcry about this back in 2018 and an incredibly simple solution was widely suggested: demonetize the video.
However, the highly viewed video is a significant source of royalty revenue for Mr. Astley, which, as he well argued at the time in a series of tweets, is only just compensation for the way his image has been turned into a joke literally hundreds of millions of times now.
Mr. Astley implored YT not to bow to pressure and demonetize the video. YT famously replied “don’t worry, we’re never going to give you up, never going to let you down.”