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GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

torrentfreak.com

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Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#91

Post by Rochus »

Mindwipe wrote: post #33
Rochus wrote: post #5

People should move their youbube-dl repositories to servers hosted in Switzerland, where people are not criminalized when downloading content and making copies for personal use (even when copy protected).

I hate to break it to you but distribution of tools related to bypassing DRM/technical protection measures (which is what the RIAA takedown letter actually cited) is illegal in Switzerland and has been since 2006. Indeed, you can be sent to prison for it with a maximum tariff of a year in prison. https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19920251/...

I don't think youtube-dl violates any of the points in the referenced paragraph.

EDIT: also note that it states "effective technological measures" ("Umgehung wirksamer technischer Massnahmen" in German); if there is no (effective) protection measure such as in Youtube then the referenced sanctions obviously don't apply (nulla poena sine lege).

Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#92

Post by konjin »

mrtksn wrote: post #82
konjin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, js is fundamentally a technology with an anti-competitive ethos enforced by the fact you need an army of engineers employed full time to keep even a trivial site up and running, and on top of that it has surveillance built into it's core. You can't be anonymous using it by design. Apps built on top of tcp that don't have persistent state, like signed emails, don't suffer from either of those problems and are fund…

See, anything about sharing needs centralisation. It's not about JS or whatever language or framework or whatever makes this thing tik. The need for centralisation is an inherit weakness that can't be solved by technology. Sure you can share something among friends, then your centralisation point would be your school or workplace or something too touch heavy to attack and scale, so no one cares.

Block chain, bit torrent, freenet.

There are plenty of alternatives that don't require centralization, they are just unpolished because there is no money in them.

Again, github only exists because for some reason my generation of developers has decided that js is the only way to use the internet and a pretty interface makes up for not knowing the tools you are using.

Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#93

Post by vaccinator »

squarefoot wrote: post #65

When men were men, every single GH user would host YT-dl in protest, then good luck to MS alienating their entire userbase. (ps. I don't have a GH account)

Here, create an account and for this: https://github.com/l1ving/youtube-dl

Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#94

Post by feanaro »

bitwize wrote: post #40
db48x wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing to circumvent. It's not illegal.

Wrong. YouTube obfuscates the URL of the video stream for videos which have been identified as containing copyrighted material and are licensed for streaming only through the YouTube Web player or app. The copyright owner has made the material available under a license which permits ONLY that. Youtube-dl contains code to decrypt the URL of the video stream in order to download and save the copyrighted material, in vi…

Are you aware that the decryption you are talking about is simple JavaScript execution and that according to this interpretation, even browsers are in violation?

You can't host something publicly, available via common, general purpose technology and then claim protection when someone uses this general purpose technology to obtain it.

The RIAA would have more of a case if they hosted this on their own site and made it accessible only through their own special purpose tooling. It would still be stupid, but then they could at least claim a RIAA Player(tm) is required to access the content.

Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#95

Post by arghwhat »

jasode wrote: post #37

Some example comments in this thread: >"People should move their youbube-dl repositories to servers hosted in Switzerland, " >"Time for a decentralized version control system?" >"The nice thing about fossil" ... those well-meaning suggestions are missing the true difficulty : The community wants a (1) Schelling Point [0] for workflow/issues/discussions/PRs that's also (2) censorship resistant. So far, (1) and (2) con…

> And SMTP mailing lists also ultimately depend on a server that holds the discussion archive and a well-known address for new users to send a "add my email" request.

This is not entirely correct. The fault lies in the assumed importance of the list.

When I send a kernel patch, I send it to the maintainer, then CC anyone I myself think should be involved, and finally CC the relevant lists (plural). The list acts as feed for lurkers, and as an archive.

The mailing list server being down will not affect this workflow in the slightest. It's a minor inconvenience at best, and mostly to those that were not part of the development flow and just wanted to lurk.

Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#96

Post by varispeed »

ikeboy wrote: post #44

Great. I posted two forks, if GitHub takes action then I've got standing to sue RIAA (under the declaratory judgement act), which I'd love to do pro se. Btw, if anyone is associated with any fork that did go down and is interested in bringing a pro se case, feel free to contact me. I'm not a lawyer and can't give legal advice but I can help point you at some helpful laws and cases. I've been fighting false infringeme…

Why would you have a stand to sue RIAA if GitHub would have blocked your account? I think you may only have a claim against GH, but I have not read T&C well enough, but I can imagine they would have an entry enabling them to block anyone for any reason. I don't think you could do anything about it.

Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#97

Post by sbarre »

gruez wrote: post #43
sbarre wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not far because _Microsoft_ - the owner of the repo - will fight you on it. It happens that they own Github, but s/Microsoft/Oracle/ and you'll probably get the same result. The automated systems will take down the repo for a bit, then the owner of the repo will kick your ass in court. It just happens that youtube-dl doesn't have a large corporate owner, and the RIAA _is_ a large corporate entity, and so this is how…

>The automated systems will take down the repo for a bit That seems unlikely, considering that would be a massive DDoS vector.

Fair enough, I was making an assumption there.. but you are probably correct.

Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#98

Post by delfinom »

mkl95 wrote: post #66

I think some people are missing a major point about youtube-dl's takedown. The purpose of this DMCA claim wasn't just to prevent people from downloading videos, it was to set a legal precedent for the RIAA and similar organizations to troll Github and anyone hosting public repositories with it, by linking them to "illegal downloads". By agreeing to this without any public opposition, Github has become similar to Yout…

What? GitHub has handled DMCA like this for years.

Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#99

Post by ikeboy »

varispeed wrote: post #96
ikeboy wrote: post #44

Great. I posted two forks, if GitHub takes action then I've got standing to sue RIAA (under the declaratory judgement act), which I'd love to do pro se. Btw, if anyone is associated with any fork that did go down and is interested in bringing a pro se case, feel free to contact me. I'm not a lawyer and can't give legal advice but I can help point you at some helpful laws and cases. I've been fighting false infringeme…

Why would you have a stand to sue RIAA if GitHub would have blocked your account? I think you may only have a claim against GH, but I have not read T&C well enough, but I can imagine they would have an entry enabling them to block anyone for any reason. I don't think you could do anything about it.

RIAA made a claim that some content violates their rights under DMCA, which in this hypothetical causes my account to be blocked. I can bring a case under the declaratory judgement act against RIAA, asking a court to decide whether the content is actually infringing. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_judgment

I may also have a tortious interference claim, although damages are likely negligible so it's probably not worth bringing any claims other than that declaratory judgement one.

Re: GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

#100

Post by Matt3o12_ »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #84
pessimizer wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Torrents are nothing more than a clever idea without The Pirate Bay No, there are magnets now. You can send a torrent as a hash. The reason it won't work is because you can just take that hash, log all of the swarm ips, send secret letters to all of the isps to reveal the seeders and leechers, bust in their doors and arrest them, publicize their arrests in every newspaper and on every television channel, interrogat…

Has anything like that ever happened?

In Germany it is quite common to get a fine for that (an adhortatory letter or Abmahnung in German).

Media companies monitor torrents, and as soon as they see a new German ip address seeding, they send a letter to the ISP with the IP address and timestamp. The ISPs send the law firm the real user address and then they send you a letter demanding a fine for illegally uploading copyrighted material often between 1000-3000€. If you don't pay up, they take you to court.

This is quite common and many people see letters even if they only seed for a few seconds. Apparently the easiest way is to just ignore the letters and pretend you don't live there but I wouldn't be so sure (a friend told me that's what he did and it allegedly worked but I have no experience with either).

So this is a lot less drastic but still quite as effective. And it even makes VPNs risky because disconnecting and exposing your real IP for even one second is enough to receive that letter (though not all torrents are monitored and private torrents are usually safe because the German RIAA doesnt have access to it).

I recommend you take a look at the Wikipedia about "Abmahnung" how that is even possible when the copyright holders don't sue themselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abmahnung

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