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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

#891
So recently I asked if Unix v6 is the "To Kill a Mockingbird" of computer science, then what is the Huckleberry Finn. Ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24856047

This thing with YouTube-dl makes me consider that one quality that a "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" of computer science should possess is having been banned. Of course YouTube-dl might not be the Huckleberry Finn, but maybe it is something like The Satanic Verses (which I was never a fan of).

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

#892
post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding this, does anyone know where the best place to hear from the main developers is? Youtube is bound to make a breaking change any day now, and as-is I have no idea where to look for updates to the project once this happens.

> Regarding this, does anyone know where the best place to hear from the main developers is? Sure, their website https://youtube-dl.org/ But they don't seem to have updated it yet

Website has since been updated with new download links and a notice about the takedown, so I'd keep my eye on it for future updates.

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

#893

Isn't there a 1st-amendment exception for code? The code isn't violating any copyright.

In particular, the website has been taken down as well.

If not the code, then at least that, should be a free speech violation; DMCA should not be used to silence websites (even if the code is taken down!)

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

#894
The more I look at the RIAA's complaint, the stranger it seems.

I'm not even sure that the RIAA has standing to sue or could demonstrate injury:

- The claimed anti-circ method is not the RIAA's, it is Google's (via YouTube). - As a user agent, youtube-dl is simple an alternate Web access method which runs code from the YouTube website as a necessary part of the process of accessing and playing content ... meant to be accessed and downloaded. - Youtube-dl has substantial non-infringing use. 17 USC 1201(a)(2)(B) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

See 17 USC 1203: Civil remedies: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1203

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

#895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if collaboration on opensource projects (i.e. hosting, issues and their comments) was decentralized instead of relying on a central entity like Github? That would keep the developer base active and make DMCA takedowns ineffective.

> What if collaboration on opensource projects (i.e. hosting, issues and their comments) was decentralized instead of relying on a central entity like Github? That would keep the developer base active and make DMCA takedowns ineffective. But decentralisation would also make it harder to verify the code is legitimate. Would you trust a copy of something like this from an anonymous server?

If only a cryptographic tool was integrated into git so developers could sign their commits. Man, that'd sure be a neat thing for cases like this where you can't trust the remote. Why hasn't anyone though of this before?

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

#896

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…

> And that's what the README showed: that youtube-dl was built primarily to violate copyright.

That's not what "primarily" means.

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

#898
post #339

Seems like a fresh mirror here https://gitea.eponym.info/Mirrors/youtube-dl to fork and start it over somewhere else. Gitea is a great project. Now we need someone to fork and publish it over Tor or something. Decentralized solution would be a next step. Diff between that mirror and the one from the web.archive.com looks good. I.e. no hidden/evil things inside. Looks safe to start over. ``` $ git log --oneline -3 48c…

the author of gittorrent recommends https://radicle.xyz/

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

#899
post #670
post #254

Not a lawyer, software guy working in licensing & copyright for 20+ years. Was paid for a few years to talk about this stuff with tech and publishing people. They're requesting the takedown under 17 U.S. Code § 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems. [ https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 ] It's a few paragraphs of the actual law at stake here. There's no much to it. Essentially, they're argu…

I am confused. The complaint seems to be that copyright infringement is happening with the downloading from YouTube, but I thought it happened with the uploading to YouTube. Could you clear that up?

Many, most popular ones these days even, YouTube videos are uploaded in an authorised manner. Music videos by VEVO, etc.
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