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YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

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

#791

Post by stjohnswarts »

ezoe wrote: post #695

So, according to the RIAA's claim, it's > (i) circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube, > and > (ii) reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use. https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-2... (i) is strange claim as youtube-dl simply implements various streami…

Welcome to the USA where the court system isn't about the law or justice. It's about who has the most money and resources to win a war of attrition in court.

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

#792

Post by worblux »

zucker42 wrote: post #334
jchw wrote: post #4

Note that RIAA is making this takedown because the software CAN be used to download copyrighted music and videos, and it uses examples in the ~~README~~(unit tests, see correction[1]) as an example of that: > We also note that the source code prominently includes as sample uses of the source code the downloading of copies of our members’ copyrighted sound recordings and music videos, as noted in Exhibit A hereto. For…

It's pretty ridiculous. They might argue that a browser is a technological measure to protect a copyrighted work which youtube-dl circumvents since the DMCA is written so vaguely. Cases like this demonstrate why anti-circumvention litigation really has to go.

Meh, pretty good claim of fair use. They are just picking a smaller file that unlikely to disappear or move. The fact the file is downloaded and then deleted via a script isn't a substitute for actually viewing the file and has zero commercial impact.

And the take down could have been targeted against the particular files they found problematic rather than the whole project.

And the whole thing is ceded to the public domain. Anyone can remove the examples and unit test, call the code webvid-dl and be golden.

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

#793

Post by axiolite »

gamblor956 wrote: post #656
stingraycharles wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add a data point, but back when I still was working for a video distribution startup, we offered our customers the ability to directly import their video inventory from YouTube. They were the owners of the videos, it was just a convenient (and very popular!) feature for them to let us handle this import. We used YouTube-dl for this, of course. No way we could have done this easily without it. We imported hund…

Right, but that's not the heart of the matter. It's one thing if a tool designed for legitimate archiving use results in incidental violation of copyright. It's another thing entirely, legally, if a tool is designed for violating copyright. In such case, it doesn't matter if there are also legitimate fair use uses of the tool. And that's what the README showed: that youtube-dl was built primarily to violate copyright…

Downloading a Youtube video with youtube-dl IS NOT violating copyright in the USA.

Downloading videos may violate Youtube's TOS, but that's civil/contract law and not criminal and so the DMCA can't be used to enforce such TOS violations.

A person might share a video they don't own the copyright to, after downloading it from youtube with youtube-dl, but youtube-dl has no functionality in it to do such illegal sharing. It only has the time-shift functionality.

The only tenuous leg the RIAA has to stand on is claiming that allowing only streaming of content constitutes some form of digital rights management code, and by reverse engineering it, without imposing the same restrictions as Youtube's website and apps, do, maybe that's some form of circumvention which will be found not entirely legal.

They had to cite a German legal ruling which found YouTube’s “rolling cipher” was an anti-circumvention device. But German court rulings have no bearing on US law, and Germany doesn't have a DMCA statute, so it is a specious claim, and the RIAA is just hoping an open source project won't be able to fund a legal defense.

It's Betamax time-shifting plus macrovision/video stabilizers all over again.

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

#794

Post by salawat »

sjy wrote: post #758
ikeboy wrote: post #428

Disclaimer: IANAL. The legal reasoning here is shaky. Notice that they cite a German court and assert that the law there is materially the same as that in the US. I did some research on this specific issue at one point, and I'm skeptical that Youtube's controls qualify under the law in question. RIAA cites two sections of the law: >the provision or trafficking of the source code violates 17 USC §§1201(a)(2) and 1201(…

(A) seems applicable to me. It is obvious that the primary purpose of youtube-dl is to download videos from YouTube. It is also obvious that most videos on YouTube are copyrighted, and the absence of a ‘download’ button protects the copyright holder’s right to prevent viewers from redistributing the videos. The contentious part is whether not YouTube has “effective” anti-downloading controls that youtube-dl “circumve…

The conspicuous lack of a feature is not an active measure to be circumvented. Also, no one says you need to consume HTTP payloads with a traditional browser, no matter how much the rest of the worldwants to think that the Internet is all about the WWW.

Finally, there is most definitely gobs of YouTube public domain or CC-by-SA. Copyright owners who reserve all rights are not the center of the Universe.

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

#796

Post by lettergram »

ChoGGi wrote: post #752
lettergram wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I haven’t seen pointed out is that this is really Githubs problem. They shouldn’t automatically respond to DCMA. The process should really be passed on to the owner of the repo and make them liable. Basically, defaulting to rolling over to DMCA requests had led to an environment where there’s no way to fight them. Even if I hosted something like YouTube-dl myself, my internet provider could cut me off. It’s the…

> Basically, defaulting to rolling over to DMCA requests had led to an environment where there’s no way to fight them That's the DMCA works I thought? When the host receives the notice they have to take down the content then forward the notice to the user, who can then file a counter-claim and then the host restores the content (if they don't take it down they they're liable).

Github and YouTube and most other places immediately take down content. It’s also extremely difficult to reinstate content, if possible at all.

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

#797

Post by stjohnswarts »

brink wrote: post #442

Is there a decentralized version control system solution out there to host projects like this?

It would be terrible if youtube-dl.com would digitally sign and release youtube-dl source as zips on thepiratebay and other torrenting sites instead of github.com.

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

#798

Post by dredmorbius »

dylan604 wrote: post #788
dredmorbius wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reports are that Homebrew is affected: https://nitter.net/micahflee/status/1319750021319852032#m

They can't claw it back though!! That's why I just ran the update && upgrade to make sure I have the latest

I don't know. Micah's pretty reliable though.

Any recent Homebrew commits?

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

#799

Post by dredmorbius »

ZDNet reports this is part of a larger action:

"RIAA blitz takes down 18 GitHub projects used for downloading YouTube videos"

aand isn't a DMCA 512 takedown:

Although GitHub classified the RIAA letter as a DMCA takedown request, it is not one. As Public Knowledge Legal Director John Bergmayer pointed out today on Twitter, RIAA isn't alleging the library infringed on its rights, but that the library is illegal in itself.

This isn’t really a DMCA request. I don’t see an assertion that youtube-dl is an infringing work. Rather the claim is that it’s illegal per se https://t.co/vQ16nVleCf

— John Bergmayer (@bergmayer) October 23, 2020

https://www.zdnet.com/article/riaa-blitz-takes-down-18-githu...

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

#800

Post by Iv »

Delenda RIAA

The whole copyright industry is based on toxic premises that do not hold true anymore in the internet age.

By now, different models have been proven to work. Make them the norm. Abolish copyright. Or turn them back into what they were supposed to be: a TEMPORARY protection of a work since first publication (originally 21 years IIRC).

Old Disney characters, superheroes invented in the 40s and 50s, even the "more recent" Starwars are part of culture now just like Othello or Moby Dick are. Allow to use them as such.

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