RIAA’s YouTube-dl takedown ticks off developers and GitHub’s CEO

Post by AshamedCaptain » Tue, Oct 27, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

JdeBP wrote: post #187

will4274 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You come off as responding in bad faith. The argument is not specific to YouTube; YouTube is just the example. You're reaching to find something that technically incorrect, even though the point is fairly clear. There's an obvious difference between a static target (like a DVD) and a moving target (like a web service). With a static target, an archive is useful for all items produced prior to the archive. With a movi…

It's not a reach when YouTube was specifically named as the reason that youtube-dl will be "absolutely useless". That was what was clearly stated. Whereas it is a reach, ironically, for you to assume that all WWW sites are like YouTube, especially given the discussion of "extractors" that I pointed to, and even are moving targets. As I said before, this premise, that you have assumed like AshamedCaptain, is highly er…

Post by antpls » Tue, Oct 27, 2020, 11:38 PM UTC

nocturnial wrote: post #119

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #55

The takedown didn't backfire at all just because some people decided to publish on Twitter a tarball that still happens to be hosted in many other places so there is absolutely no risk of it getting lost. The problem is that the project may not survive this. Major distributions for example will no longer carry the project and likely refuse to touch it even with a ten-foot pole (think media codecs situation). It will…

> The problem is that the project may not survive this. I thought all they need to do is to issue a counter-notice. Popcorn did this and got their code reinstated on github: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24885079 In the worst case, they need to adjust their tests. This is what the issuer of the complaint brought up. Their tests of the code downloaded a couple of seconds of what the RIAA thought is copyrighted…

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Oct 27, 2020, 11:49 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #195

gamblor956 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be more to your story. The RIAA generally doesn't have any involvement in video games, other than where its members license music to games (i.e., GTA), and they generally wouldn't have any grounds for being part of the proceedings you've described if their involvement was just the music licensing. I can see the ESA being a huge dick in these proceedings, because it's their job to do that, but the RIAA lite…

Transcripts of these hearings are publicly available. This seems to be the hearing GP was referring to (it's proposed class 23 in this hearing): https://cdn.loc.gov/copyright/1201/2015/hearing-transcripts/... Appears the same lawyer was representing ESA/RIAA/MPAA. I briefly started reading some of them a while back and they're, uh, frustrating to read.

Post by istjohn » Tue, Oct 27, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

ce4 wrote: post #201

TillE wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People talk a lot about the UK's strict defamation laws, but the German concept of "Beleidigung" goes much much further. It's against the law to give someone the middle finger, for example.

That has to do with order. Insulting people is not considered orderly, hence the possible penalties. You can however insult people using the language twisted the right way and not pose yourself at risk. I wouldnt call this concept reduction of free speech, when in fact all it takes away is the liberty to insult someone in certain ways.

Post by rpgmaker » Tue, Oct 27, 2020, 11:56 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #181

ineedasername wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that even if the code gets reinstated, the RIAA may just pressure Google into changing its method of protection. Then perhaps a new tool could be created, but not very easily if the RIAA succeeds in establishing a precedent for taking down tools that have the potential to infringe.

YouTube is increasingly only a few pain points from mass exodus from both creators and audience. Advertisers and copyright maximalists less so. Bandwidth and distribution are no longer the limitations on independent hosting they once were. Independent discovery methods (e.g., DDG video search), are improving. Noncommercial orientation makes youtube-dl and similar mechanisms a net positive --- simplify the web-based d…