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How journalists use youtube-dl

freedom.press

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Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#131
post #91

YouTube even offers a Creative Commons feature, such as on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUY01kW8p2o : if you scroll to the end of the description it reads: License Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed). I've never understood why they don't offer a download option for such videos: the likes of youtube-dl is the only way to get a copy, and it's perfectly legal. Likewise for public domain videos.

Google has zero interest in free downloads. They are in bed with the music industry which makes them some ad dollars and their client thinking is sub-zero. Thats because the public is not the client, the advertisers are. If I worked at Google I would be scratching myself behind the ears and take a long big look at what the company has become.

I suspect there's at least a small dose of ultra privilege of googlers involved too.

The same way governments and bureaucrats fuck up things like Covid responses, because they can't even imagine people not having 9-5 office jobs which are totally suited to WFH, and then blithely implement disease protection schemes failing to account for low income and precariously employed people, many of whom are working 3 jobs to pay the bills (including stuff like cleaning jobs where they work at 4 or 5 different old people's homes) - and then wonder why outbreaks spread so fast.

Googlers have probably forgotten the olden times, when they didn't have Gigabit connections to their pockets and lounge rooms, and don't even remember last time they wanted to "save a copy into a hard drive locally, like a hilarious boomer!"...

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#132
I am super curious, if this software is open source and the most damning aspect of this case is likely to come down to non-software specific factors like the inclusion of copywrited material (from big name artists) in the unit tests and README and such, what would be the result is someone with the repo just scrubbed the README, refactorfed the unit tests to rid them of any tests on copywrited material, changed the name to something generic like webvid-archiver or some such and rereleased it?

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#133

Sorry for being behind on this discussion, but how can there possibly be a legal basis for taking down open-source software on the basis that it might be used for infringing someone's copyright? Can they takedown my web browser and operating system too? These are general purpose tools. It's sad that the conversation is all about justifying its use - I think the takedown is absolutely unjustified. GitHub should have l…

The continuous integration environment downloaded a few seconds of copyrighted content bc those videos have obfuscation they needed to test. The RIAA claims that this is a violation. Youtube dl claims it's fair use.

Right, that makes far more sense. I should have known I was missing something as it's ridiculous on the face of it. Thanks!

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#134
I use youtube-dl to archive my recordings of my own performances which have been put online by third parties (and which no one but me has any rights to!).

I use youtube-dl to view videos on other sites (such as vimeo) that don't display in my browser (due to compatibility or privacy settings), usually product support stuff.

I use youtube-dl to collect evidence about cryptocurency scammers, which often gets removed from youtube by the time the scam starts collecting. By collecting it when its online it makes it possible to hand over to lawyers so they know what to go subponea. At least once a video I saved probably personally saved me from a frivolous lawsuit (attorney fired his lying client after sending me a threat letter which I responded to with an archived video).

I sometimes use youtube-dl to buffer longer pieces which I'm watching which might suffer from infuriating connection interruptions.

I don't use youtube-dl to save copyrighted music (except incidentally), among other reasons: the audio on youtube is often pretty low quality.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1 is an activity protected by fair use, and something fairly important. Imagine a world where you can't reference images or clips in your journalism or reviews, forever having to rely on only licensed material and descriptions.

Fair use does not override the TOS which YouTube-DP violates

Wow, by that logic news reporters aren't even allowed watch videos on the site for news reporting purposes because it would violate the ban on commercial use.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#137

I have friends in law enforcement who use youtube-dl to save copies of videos involving crimes or criminal allegations, from quite a few different social media and video sites. Speaking with them, it seems the associated metadata (json/xml?) and output log contain valuable information to go along with the video from an evidentiary perspective. Also the fact that youtube-dl has many test cases in the code goes towards…

It seems the referenced URLs in question in the source are part of unit testing.

Aside: Wonder how gitlab handles DMCA requests.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#138
post #3

My two big uses cases for youtube-dl: 1) Downloading videos to use later in editing for analysis pieces / editorial videos. 2) Download videos that may disappear in a "No longer available" blackhole. The 2nd is incredibly useful and telling when you go back, look up videos by their ID, and see what has been deleted. I'd also recommend changing the OUTPUT format to include the channel name or Twitter account, so you c…

My main use on youtube-dl is downloading videos to watch them in places with slow / unreliable DSL. Watching a youtube video on a slow (1k) DSL has become entirely impossible because a few years back youtube (seemingly) stopped buffering the entire video, so you can't start the video, pause, go do something else and watch it once it's loaded. Not only that, but it really does not handle either temporary disconnection…

I don't even keep most of the videos I downloaded due to that, as they are not worth watching more than once anyway, so it could be argued that it's no different than how people usually use YouTube.

AFAIK, (good) browsers still give you the direct links if you know where to look, but the slow boiling of the frog is really evident with things like hiding View Source and such (often under the guise of "usability".) The demise of youtube-dl, along with Google's pushing of their proprietary protocols and other continued user hostilities surely paints a sad picture for the freedom of the Internet...

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process for a subpoena takes forever and isn't guaranteed. If I have a subject who has relevant video on a service like YouTube, and I decide to go the subpoena route, here's the process: - Find the exact video, document the URL, Content creator's account name, and video upload date. - Submit a preservation letter to Google to ensure the video will still be accessible when the subpoena is auctioned. - go to my pr…

"It's _hard word_ doing policing right! Why don't we just chokehold this black guy till he confesses to a crime?" :sigh:

I think that using youtube-dl to download a video that a suspect has uploaded to YouTube, and presenting it in court is an example of doing policing right.

If you don't want your videos to be used against you in court, I would recommend not publicly broadcasting them to the entire world.

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