YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#481

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #165

CivBase wrote: post #99

> this seems outrageous the same way DMCA'ing a Bittorrent client would be Why stop there? I can use my browser to illegally download content, so I guess we better issue a DMCA takedown that too. But who even needs a browser? Let's issue a takedown for the GNU Project while we're at it because I could use wget to do the same thing. In fact, I could write my own program to illegally download content, so we better just…

DMCA is a bad law, but you'd have a harder time arguing a general purpose web browser meets any of the following conditions: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 (2)No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that— (A)is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a techn…

You're not even quoting the right section. Section 1201 is about circumvention tools, takedowns are Section 512.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#482

Post by ferdek » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #131

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #39

This is the first time I've read a DMCA notice that also references EU Directives and German law too (admittedly it's a thin note saying it's materially equivalent to U.S.C.). Is that even meaningful in a DMCA takedown notice?

It is like your abusive partner brings up all the things they think you did wrong when they don't have any logical argument.

I believe the way you put it describes this part in the DMCA takedown notice the best way possible. Bringing up European laws on intellectual property and mixing it with US "copyright" is comical to me, especially after reading this [0] article on French law recently:

> France doesn’t have copyright. Sorry for US readers, your “copyright” is nonsense that doesn’t apply here, though the word “copyright” can be seen misused verbatim once in a while.

I believe this interpretation of "copyright" is all similar around Europe. US copyright law is all about "right to make copies", be it software or music/video and it just doesn't make any sense on the other side of the globe.

In the country where I live I can purchase a music or video file and legally make unlimited copies for my personal use. It is also legal to download it from any other source as long as I can prove that I paid for it some time ago in the past. Torrents are illegal as the protocol forces me to share the file, and sharing part is illegal. Downloading is fine xD.

[0] https://thehftguy.com/2020/09/15/french-judge-rules-gpl-lice...

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#483

Post by nickjj » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #378

nickjj wrote: post #114

Things like this make no sense from the notice: > The clear purpose of this source code is to (i) circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube Using this logic then OBS or any desktop recording tool is also violating the same measures because you could press record while a Youtube video is playing and wind up with your own locally recorded copy of the video. S…

It makes perfect sense to the people who design these twisted legal machinations. A tool like OBS is designed for generic desktop recordings, while youtube-dl is designed specifically to enable the copying of copyrighted works. Or at least that's what the RIAA will say, and unfortunately a judge will likely be very sympathetic to that claim.

Yep.

I wonder where this will go defensively in court if it gets there.

I guess what the RIAA is really saying is that murder is legal depending on what was used to kill someone.

A hunting knife could be used to kill someone but it could also be used to slice a pizza pie. A pizza cutter was designed to slice pizza but it could also kill someone without too much effort.

If it's not ok for youtube-dl to create an mp3 of a music video but it is ok for OBS to do the same then it must also be ok to decapitate someone with a pizza cutter[0].

[0]: Do not try this. I'm not a lawyer.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#484

Post by dang » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #99

> this seems outrageous the same way DMCA'ing a Bittorrent client would be Why stop there? I can use my browser to illegally download content, so I guess we better issue a DMCA takedown that too. But who even needs a browser? Let's issue a takedown for the GNU Project while we're at it because I could use wget to do the same thing. In fact, I could write my own program to illegally download content, so we better just…

(This subthread was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24872940)

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#485

Post by roywiggins » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #193

larrik wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that copyrighted works were included in the readme shows it was intended for that use, and the RIAA complaint will likely stand up to any legal scrutiny. Just because it can be used for legit purposes too won't matter in the slightest. I mean, Napster could have been used for legal means as well, and it got destroyed in court. The only chance tools like this have legally is when infringement is an "unintende…

Can't it be trivially reinstated then by removing any references to copyrighted content? youtube-dl has plenty of legitimate uses beyond just copyright infringement.

The issue with the readme infects the rest of the code, even if it's removed. It's still evidence that the repository was intended to facilitate copyright infringement. The problem isn't the words of the readme but what those words imply about what the authors of the code intended.

If they instead had released it and then said in a public forum "check out my cool code for copyright infringement" (but had a totally blameless README) that would be used as evidence in the same way.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#486

Post by andy_ppp » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

I find this amazing, essentially Google has been scraping every piece of content they can get their hands on, when a few individuals decide to get data, that wasn’t even created by YouTube, they get take down notices. The more I think about it hypocrisy should be a defence against these things.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#487

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

ojagodzinski wrote: post #457

fenwick67 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's called Git.

how git is decentralized?

When you clone a repo from Github, you now have locally an equally as valid and complete repository as Github. If you expose access to it over the Internet, I could clone that repo from you, work on it, and send patches to you. Etc.

Git was designed to facilitate a network of repos. For better or worse, most use cases naturally gravitate towards a single clone as the "canonical version", and unfortunately we've all got too comfortable in having that version be owned by a third party service provider.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#488

Post by quotemstr » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

_23sd wrote: post #464

Worth noting the MPA already tried doing this to Popcorn Time, a BitTorrent client designed to provide a Netflix-like UX.[1] The Popcorn Time devs put in a counter-notice and the repository was back up a few weeks later when the period for the MPA to respond expired. The same thing will probably happen here because this is not one of the purposes of DMCA takedown letters, period. Even if there are inappropriate test…

It's interesting how many Github counternotices (e.g., [1] [2]) seem completely justified yet link to repositories that are no longer on GitHub. I wonder what happened.

[1] in https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/05/2020-05-0... someone forked a permissively-licensed project; the original author made the project-closed source, then issued a DMCA takedown against the fork. That's clearly bogus: you can't revoke an open source license.

[2] in https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2019/11/2019-11-2... Microsoft DMCAd a project that did something with Windows local licensing keys. I can see how Microsoft would prefer that this project not exist, but I see no infringement. Not everything that a big company dislikes is an infringement of copyright.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#489

Post by zxcvbn4038 » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

tux1968 wrote: post #441

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #401

This should be about impossible to enforce? Every developer and everyone who has ever cloned the repo has the complete source tree with commits. I can think of a list of countries where United States laws are not a concern, I imagine that shortly this will be one of the most distributed repositories ever. It also shows again that while free services like Github are convenient, and truthfully their interface is the on…

It's not access to the current program that is at stake, it's the ongoing public updates to handle changes made by the Youtube site.

Understood, just waiting to see where the devs pop up. I imagine that someone will help them with a DMCA counterclaim also. RIAA has been beaten many times, they have a long history of creative interpretation that the courts do not always agree with, and US law is only valid in the United States and Australia (thats a joke, but do hope they get on the brick and road plan or stop acting like a US colony at some point).

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#490

Post by thescriptkiddie » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #454

mohamez wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or let's remove knives from all together from this world because someone is using the to kill other people.

If you sell a "murderizer 3000" and explain in the owner's manual how to inflict a fatal wound and maybe also not leave any evidence behind it doesn't take a genius to argue you're selling a murder weapon, to murderers.

Have you seen gun ads? Firearm manufacturers basically do market their products as murder weapons.