Live data from Hacker News

YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

github.com

281–290 of 332 posts

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because GitHub wants to allow repo maintainers to merge in PRs without them having to add separate remotes themselves, ie `git remote add` isn't required to `git merge`. This basically means that any content can be injected into anyone's GH repo (since PRs can't be turned off), but really only in terms of being able to view it on the GitHub website. To give an example, pull 437 on torvalds/linux[0] hasn'…

yuck, yet another reason to get people to do commit signing - and enforce it by github not attributing unsigned commits.

Does commit signing really solve this? I believe you can restrict branches to only allow signed commits, but since these commits are not in any branch on that repository it looks like that wouldn't change anything. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...intent is factored into the law. What gets lost or missed is the underlying intent of the protocols and tools being used to share content. An http server serves files independent of the client/user-agent–that's how the web works. If a work is published this way then that's the expectation. If YouTube and the RIAA want it to work another way, then use a different protocol/medium and put the content behind a login…

Right, but even when offering free resources to the public you still maintain the manner in which they are accessed and distributed. It's not as clear as let's say access to a public park on private land. But the idea would carry weight that youtube may control the manner in which their publicaly accessable website may be accessed. Let's say you can access via the YouTube app which does not require an account, and no…

This was indeed bound to happen. The discussions we have are what's needed to decide how the internet/web moves forward. And there's a bit of cake eating and having it too from both sides.

There's an expectation from the publishing/serving side of the equation that the content is being served to a proprietary app or a web browser that works a particular way. With the browser being one of Chrome, Firefox, etc., along with Google's YouTube apps.

On the user side, especially those who understand how the content is served, that the browser is not the only abstraction allowed. Google themselves run bots to scour the internet employing all sorts of tricks to access and index content. There's a fundamental way in which the http protocol works and its content served that is client agnostic. Everyone, Google Search most of all, have benefitted from this.

Making tools other than browsers illegal will fundamentally break the internet in my opinion.

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#283

https://github.com/github/dmca/pull/8142 now shows a "Unicorn! The page is taking too much to load" - anyone else see this?

https://github.com/github/dmca/tree/416da574ec0df3388f652e44... worked for me. But I can't get the tree. But if you download the repo as a zip in their gui that's the easiest way.

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#284
post #219
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean something like... got? ;) But I agree with the sibling posts, while decentralised change tracking is pretty much the original idea of git, all the project management stuff (issues, comments, membership/permissions, discoverability) are a lot harder to decentralize. I also don't think the MPAA or whoever else would be very impressed by that if the end result is still illegal activity: If the developers are kn…

Just host a gitlab instance through TOR or something, bish bash bosh

GitLab through tor sounds slow...... (Six dots for six hops)

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that evidence for the case though? youtube-dl has code to see through obfuscation methods which are only available to specific YouTube partners. If you're a tool for downloading open, not copyrighted videos, why do you need that?

youtube-dl is not, strictly speaking, a downloading tool. It's an access tool. You want to access YouTube videos through an alternate client, as is your legal right in the European Union ? youtube-dl is a useful library for the job. You can use youtube-dl to download videos, but the intended use here is clearly for watching them. Just because syringe needles are tested on (and advertised for) human skin and are also…

> youtube-dl is not, strictly speaking, a downloading tool. It's an access tool.

What you’re describing is a circumvention device. The DMCA explicitly outlaws these. 17 U.S. Code § 1201

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yuck, yet another reason to get people to do commit signing - and enforce it by github not attributing unsigned commits.

Does commit signing really solve this? I believe you can restrict branches to only allow signed commits, but since these commits are not in any branch on that repository it looks like that wouldn't change anything. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

That yes, but at least the github/gitlab/... UI could refuse to link unsigned comments to the userpage belonging to the email in the commit.

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#288

I think the long term solution for this problem is the developers of open source software like the bit torrent client, youtube-dl and other similar software will have to host their code outside of the reach of DMCA regualation. That will usually mean something like Github like site hosted in Russia, China or some other bloc where DMCA does not apply. Right now, lots of users in the US scientific community use Scihub…

Relying on other countries can't ever be a long term solution. That pirate bay and scihub are still around, that their authors are walking around freely, is a miracle that should not be taken for granted. We need to work on fixing these problems in our own countries. We need to talk about the freedoms we care about, put a good brand to those freedoms and win popular attention and enshrine those freedoms into law. And…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube-dl is now part of GitHub/dmca.git

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

youtube-dl is not, strictly speaking, a downloading tool. It's an access tool. You want to access YouTube videos through an alternate client, as is your legal right in the European Union ? youtube-dl is a useful library for the job. You can use youtube-dl to download videos, but the intended use here is clearly for watching them. Just because syringe needles are tested on (and advertised for) human skin and are also…

> You want to access YouTube videos through an alternate client, as is your legal right in the European Union? Do you have a source on this? I can't find anything about this through a quick Google search, but I'd love for this to be true.

To the best of my knowledge (and IANAL) a good example of this is the European Court of Justice Case C-355/12 "Nintendo v. PC Box" where europas highest court ruled that DRM must respect the principle of proportionality and circumvention of technical protection is only illegal if done for unlawful purposes. If DRM prevents lawful purposes, then the DRM is not proportional to consumer rights (or those of other corporations). If circumventing DRM is illegal is a question of the specific case and must take into account the purpose of the tech used to do it and what people actually use it for.

This, at the core, means it is very hard to argue that some library written to circumvent DRM is "illegal tech" and have it taken down in this manner, because the DRM could be inappropriate and it is not the copyright owner who has to decide that.

The ECJ was asked by a Milan court for a preliminary, so they gave instructions how the Milan court should handle the matter and how the law is to be interpreted. The base case was about a mod-chip sold by pc-box, who argued as a defendant, that circumventing nintendos DRM for the purpose of playing homebrews was ok and nintendo preventing that is inappropriate.

In the general case this was a huge win, because "circumventing DRM is illegal" is only true with a big IF, not as a blanket statement. And from that follows that usage of alternative clients is well within the consumers rights, but again i am not a lawyer.

However note that the Milan court then ruled in its case 12508/2015 that this particular mod chip is illegal. Nintendo gave a lot of evidence about the advantages of their DRM in terms of cost, ease of use, security etc, comparing it to inferior implementations of their choice that would fail to protect the copyright holders interests, as well as evidence of usage of the mod chip for piracy. On the other side pc-box defaulted, filing no evidence showing that their users are a vibrant community of homebrew gamers and techheads that circumvent DRM for purposes well within their rights, like running self written software on the hardware. The Milan court also argues that defendant has a burden of proof to show that a more proportionate drm method was possible, which i strongly disagree with, and which seems to follow nintendos argument that their solution is appropriate even if more restrictive then strictly necessary. Note that Milan does not speak for the EU.

Post reply on HN