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YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

github.com

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Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#111

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

crazygringo wrote: post #21

Curious if anyone with legal expertise knows if this has legs? They say: > The clear purpose of this source code is to (i) circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube, and (ii) reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use. But the "circumventing" is still accessing a stream the use…

The entire IP concept is really hard to make sense of with the web: a browser works by making a local copy of a remote resource and then making that local copy available to the user. I don’t see why, from the server’s perspective, the precise client matters: if I use curl + pandoc to read your webpage, is that really meaningfully different from using Firefox or Chrome?

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#112

Post by gruez »

3np wrote: post #19

It's outrageous indeed that GH/MS is complying. It's not that far from targeting wget or curl, were it not for the widespread use of them in industry.

>It's outrageous indeed that GH/MS is complying.

Because there's no upside and only downside. If they refuse to comply and it turns out that youtube-dl did infringe, then they won't have DMCA safe harbor status and could be liable for damages.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#113

Post by varispeed »

molmalo wrote: post #37
jchw wrote: post #4

Note that RIAA is making this takedown because the software CAN be used to download copyrighted music and videos, and it uses examples in the ~~README~~(unit tests, see correction[1]) as an example of that: > We also note that the source code prominently includes as sample uses of the source code the downloading of copies of our members’ copyrighted sound recordings and music videos, as noted in Exhibit A hereto. For…

I was thinking the same thing: The next step following this line of thinking would be trying to ban all torrent clients, because they CAN be used to download copyrighted material. This is crazy.

Why not just ban computers or even why not jail people who even think about using ytdl? These organisations like RIAA need reality check. Sadly there is no body to stand against their bullying and stiffling the freedom of speech.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#114

Post by nickjj »

Things like this make no sense from the notice:

> The clear purpose of this source code is to (i) circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube

Using this logic then OBS or any desktop recording tool is also violating the same measures because you could press record while a Youtube video is playing and wind up with your own locally recorded copy of the video.

Since we're here, let's also say any smart phone is also in violation since they could technically record a Youtube video playing on another device.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#115

Post by bawolff »

jchw wrote: post #4

Note that RIAA is making this takedown because the software CAN be used to download copyrighted music and videos, and it uses examples in the ~~README~~(unit tests, see correction[1]) as an example of that: > We also note that the source code prominently includes as sample uses of the source code the downloading of copies of our members’ copyrighted sound recordings and music videos, as noted in Exhibit A hereto. For…

Seems like putting that in the readme was pretty stupid. Intent matters in legal things, making the example infringing undermines the argument that the tool is good and some people are just bad.

> This feels like DeCSS all over again.

I think napster would be the better comparision (and especially napster compared to vcrs)

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#118

Post by azinman2 »

perardi wrote: post #107
CivBase wrote: post #99

> this seems outrageous the same way DMCA'ing a Bittorrent client would be Why stop there? I can use my browser to illegally download content, so I guess we better issue a DMCA takedown that too. But who even needs a browser? Let's issue a takedown for the GNU Project while we're at it because I could use wget to do the same thing. In fact, I could write my own program to illegally download content, so we better just…

cURL could be used to download pornography. Think of the children!

It’s about primary purpose.

Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

#120

Post by NobodyNada »

3np wrote: post #19

It's outrageous indeed that GH/MS is complying. It's not that far from targeting wget or curl, were it not for the widespread use of them in industry.

IANAL, but as far as I know GitHub has to comply with DMCA requests. Otherwise, they would lose their safe harbor protection and become liable for all distributions of copyrighted content through their service.

However, GitHub is also required to reinstate `youtube-dl` if the creator files a DMCA counter-notice.

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