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

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

#241

Post by keeganpoppen »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #214
davidzweig wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'rolling cipher stuff' - I think you just do a regular web request to a Youtube video page URL (ie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= ...), and the response contains (in a json object) several URLs that point to the video content in various ordinary formats. You don't need to run any JS even, or pull any tricks, just parse the response string and fish out the URLs. 'rolling cipher' means the URLs change (over time, use…

Looks like there's more to it. https://gitlab.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/-/blob/master/youtube... When I think of what it's like being an engineer (regardless of field), I think of the distance between "isn't the solution as simple as...?" and what the project actually looks like after a year in production after encountering the full domain of things that can go wrong. Though youtube-dl also simply does more than what y…

the mentions of drm in that code seem completely trivial to me

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

#242

Post by justinclift »

JamesLeonis wrote: post #233
pgt wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It annoyed me enough to put me back into a buying position. I looked at Gitlab pricing after paying Github every month for a long time (hey, Business Guy: we'll switch in a heartbeat) and I started thinking about what it would take to host code in a decentralized fashion. In a free market it is important that when you are displeased with a supplier that you truthfully tell that supplier why you are displeased (ideall…

> I started thinking about what it would take to host code in a decentralized fashion. May I introduce you to GitTorrent? https://github.com/cjb/GitTorrent

Last updated 5 years ago, with no obvious successor. :/

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

#243

Post by justinclift »

sfifs wrote: post #225
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any standard user agent would "circumvent" the "protection" in exactly the same manner. If Firefox used that page as a test case for its JS engine, would that make it primarily designed for circumvention? The point of the rolling cipher is that you can't access the video without running their JS. youtube-dl did exactly that, just as any user agent would.

Well if it actually went to a court case, I'm sure either RIAA's lawyers or the defence lawyers would subpoena Google to disclose the split of downloaded videos between protected and not protected videos and then we'd actually know. It is likely RIAA would have already done some sense check of usage already using metered PC panels before even stirring up this particular hornets nest.

> It is likely RIAA would have already done some sense check of usage already using metered PC panels ...

Not sure about that. The RIAA approach over the last few years doesn't seem very well researched or well thought out. They seem to more go after "targets of opportunity" + add in coercion wherever possible.

That's just my impression anyway.

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

#244

Post by njharman »

curryst wrote: post #210
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME, most YouTube videos do not use any technological measure to prevent using any TCP client, not simply Google's Javascript player compbined with a web browser, to download the video. Moreover I have observed that for most YT videos Google's player uses "progressive download", i.e., a number of successive HTTP requests with incremented Range headers, not "streaming". Thus, for most videos, there is no need to circu…

> Section 1201, specifically referenced in RIAA's letter, requires that the circumvention software be "primarily" designed for circumvention. It's arguable youtube-dl is not primarily designed for downloading the minority of YT videos that use the rolling cipher, or whatever "protection" Google may choose to offer the minority of YT accounts that want to use YT as a distribution channel for commercial content, e.g.,…

> I still think it's debatable

RIAA depends on it being debateble. Debatable means you get to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars arguing over it in court. Sine the RIAA’s members business model depends on it, they are willing to spend whatever it takes. No one else is.

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

#245

Post by salawat »

offtop5 wrote: post #134
ilugaslifk wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite its name, half the value of `youtube-dl` is that it Just Works on every (free-as-in-beer, and non-DRMed) video site known to man. Every obscure Youtube alternative, every local news station's dogshit CMS, every porn site, Twitter, Twitch, HGTV, you name it. The far bigger part of the job would be rewriting all 800 custom extractors, then perpetually maintaining them against constant, silent, often adversarial…

Rust was a bit tongue in cheek. My point was someone needs to basically rebuild the tool as a completely seperate repo. Breaking DRM is a really bad idea

>a really bad idea

That's a funny way to spell "a moral imperative."

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

#246

Post by [deleted] »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #241
hombre_fatal wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like there's more to it. https://gitlab.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/-/blob/master/youtube... When I think of what it's like being an engineer (regardless of field), I think of the distance between "isn't the solution as simple as...?" and what the project actually looks like after a year in production after encountering the full domain of things that can go wrong. Though youtube-dl also simply does more than what y…

the mentions of drm in that code seem completely trivial to me

[deleted]

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

#247

Post by hombre_fatal »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #241
hombre_fatal wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like there's more to it. https://gitlab.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/-/blob/master/youtube... When I think of what it's like being an engineer (regardless of field), I think of the distance between "isn't the solution as simple as...?" and what the project actually looks like after a year in production after encountering the full domain of things that can go wrong. Though youtube-dl also simply does more than what y…

the mentions of drm in that code seem completely trivial to me

True, if anything it just seems to do nothing. Though don't let me distract from the rest of the code. Just seems like initially simple code slowly encumbered by if-conditions in response to real world obstacles and feature creep.

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

#248

Post by ffpip »

lolbot wrote: post #17
ffpip wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can download mp4 files directly from Youtube. I've found a way to download videos right from the domain googlevideo.com . No 3rd party tools, any requested clarity. I thought I'll make a post to explain this easy method, then realized Google would take down that method within a week, so I'm keeping quiet.

>> You can download mp4 files directly from Youtube. You really can't. >> I've found a way to download videos right from the domain googlevideo.com I assure you, you really didn't.

> I assure you, you really didn't.

I'm not gaining anything from your assurance. I've found the best way - A first party method. No shady downloaders, extensions. I'm going to keep using it.

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

#249

Post by ffpip »

ikeboy wrote: post #24
ffpip wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can download mp4 files directly from Youtube. I've found a way to download videos right from the domain googlevideo.com . No 3rd party tools, any requested clarity. I thought I'll make a post to explain this easy method, then realized Google would take down that method within a week, so I'm keeping quiet.

You can download the audio and video files by taking the URLs from the network tab in chrome, and you can then merge those files together. Just remove the range parameter in the URL.

That's not my way. I get a mp4 link on googlevideo.com . It has audio and video. I don't have to mess with the browser's dev tools too.

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

#250

Post by ralph84 »

pgt wrote: post #223
wallacoloo wrote: post #108

> By now it is clear that the RIAA’s takedown notice backfired badly. With the ‘Streisand Effect’ in full swing, there are now probably more copies of YouTube-DL online than there ever were. Did it though? Sure, the Streisand effect caused more distribution of youtube-dl, but that's never really been an issue. Open source software as widely used as youtube-dl is mirrored in a hundred different places. The issue here…

It annoyed me enough to put me back into a buying position. I looked at Gitlab pricing after paying Github every month for a long time (hey, Business Guy: we'll switch in a heartbeat) and I started thinking about what it would take to host code in a decentralized fashion. In a free market it is important that when you are displeased with a supplier that you truthfully tell that supplier why you are displeased (ideall…

GitLab's DMCA policy is not substantially different from GitHub's. Finding an example of YouTube-dl on GitLab doesn't mean GitLab doesn't comply with the DMCA, it just means RIAA hasn't sent them a DMCA notice yet. Regardless of how vocal you are you won't convince a company with US operations to not comply with the DMCA.

Rather than getting mad at companies for complying with the law of the country they operate in, why not support organizations like EFF that are actively working to change the DMCA?

https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca

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