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GitHub Warns Users Reposting YouTube-DL They Could Be Banned

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221–230 of 273 posts

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

#221

What if we got big, important accounts to repost it, creating a "hostage situation" for GitHub?

Interesting thought. It would definitely call bluff on these bully tactics by GitHub. GitHub's deplorable behavior might very well be illegal, but fat chance of anyone dragging the company to court over it, considering how much that would cost and the amount of lawyers that Microsoft would put on such a case. Yet again a tech company making up their own laws and (so far) getting away with it. One might wonder, if any…

Or they just don’t want to lose their safe harbor protections afforded by the DMCA. And to avoid that, they have to do things like this. They’re also not breaking any laws by removing user content that their TOS say they have the right to remove.

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

#222
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If I can access the video without even logging into YouTube, then I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as Digital Rights Management ?

I can watch a BluRay without an account; just throw it into the player. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t have DRM.

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

#223
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've talked to plenty of lawyers and spent plenty of money on intellectual property issues. I know what I'm talking about. A declaratory judgement suit is in my view the proper avenue to address a tenuous IP claim. Like I said, tortious interference is not a great fit, but it's still applicable - interference with my contract with Github counts as interference. If it was an actual DMCA notice then the only remedy wou…

Your cites don't say what you think they say. For starters, the first link is for a motion to dismiss, A motion to dismiss merely assesses whether the plaintiff has made sufficient claims in its pleading to keep the case going. It's not a substantive ruling on the merits of anything. And second, it was related to a "tortious interference with business expectancy claim" which required the plaintiff to have a business…

I'm well aware of the differences between a motion to dismiss, summary judgment, and awards at trial. A ruling on a motion to dismiss shows that the law applies to a situation as alleged in the complaint.

As I said in the comment you originally responded to, damages are likely to be negligible, which is why I wouldn't bring such a claim.

You didn't explain what objection you had to the concept of tortious interference as it relates to a takedown request, so I just checked my database for examples of successful tortious interference claims at any stage. (I'm following over 100 similar cases where people or companies harmed by false infringement claims sued.) To the extent you were objecting because I lack a relevant contract, I don't see why the GitHub contract isn't sufficient. The biggest issue is damages.

And as I said above, the plan is to file a declaratory judgement claim, which definitely applies if I can get standing.

Whether a tortious interference claim would work depends on a number of factors including the exact details of a hypothetical RIAA takedown request, and as I said I don't plan on pursuing one anyway.

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

#224
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 (a)(1)(A): No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. What you propose would lead to complete arbitrariness.

No, because in the U.S. we have this thing called "reasonableness." Obfuscating the cache file effectively controls the work by preventing most viewers from making a permanent copy. It takes technical knowledge to overcome that measure. (Go ahead, ask any non-techie you know to download a copy of a video from Youtube without using a tool like youtube-dl. They'll fail.) That's a reasonable measure; it would prevent th…

> It takes technical knowledge to overcome that measure. (Go ahead, ask any non-techie you know to download a copy of a video from Youtube without using a tool like youtube-dl. They'll fail.)

Go to the Taylor Swift music video, open devtools, go to the Network tab and you can download everything from there. The only caveat is that you have to manually merge audio and video files, and youtube-dl does this for you. Other than that, youtube-dl does basically the same thing.

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

#225
post #138
post #19

Hopefully they won't ban mine! https://github.com/TimDaub/youtube-dl

Very kind of you to share the DJ Raspberry remix of 'Baby', been after a copy for months.

Glad you like it, I worked countless hours on it!

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

#226
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 (a)(1)(A): No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. What you propose would lead to complete arbitrariness.

No, because in the U.S. we have this thing called "reasonableness." Obfuscating the cache file effectively controls the work by preventing most viewers from making a permanent copy. It takes technical knowledge to overcome that measure. (Go ahead, ask any non-techie you know to download a copy of a video from Youtube without using a tool like youtube-dl. They'll fail.) That's a reasonable measure; it would prevent th…

You claimed that the DMCA does not require the technical measure to be highly effective, or even that it be effective at all and I quoted from the law which says that a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. Now you come with yet other arguments. Now I would quote yet another law or decicion which contradicts your statement and so on.

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

#227
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This subthread is about Switzerland, see above. And the action is also on thin ice in the USA. The assumptions on which the takedown is based on are very questionable. I am curious to see how the proceedings that have now been initiated will turn out.

No, the RIAA notice is on pretty solid ground in the U.S. You'll note that organizations like the EFF haven't weighed in on this like they normally do when content owners get overzealous with enforcing IP controls, nor have many of the usual IP law commentators. And more importantly, the youtube-dl creators would have already filed a response if the RIAA notice was as week as so many people in this thread have claime…

Are you a lawyer? Or do you work for the RIAA?

> youtube-dl creators would have already filed a response if the RIAA notice was as week

There was actually a claim filed by a US company affiliated with youtube-dl. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCrJM-MrKyI.

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

#228
The actual DMCA takedown was just an excuse. I'm sure Microsoft's top brass would love to give the gift of killing youtube-dl to their friends at Google. Sort of a "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours". Maybe YouTube will stop begging users to switch from Edge to Chrome.

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

#229

am I the only one that doesn't support YouTube-dl? Are there use cases for it that are not downloading content that is not your own?

There are many creative commons videos on Youtube, and certainly downloading those is within the intent of that license?

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

#230
The original DMCA request stated that they violated copyright by suggesting songs in their source code. While this is a dubious copyright claim, surely the easy solution is to uphold the claim by simply replacing the songs with open source items such as big buck bunny in the source?
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