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How journalists use youtube-dl

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Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#181

Post by lxe »

I keep thinking about this takedown... the issue at hand is the inclusion of youtube links in the readme, which encourages downloads of copyrighted works from youtube. From the complaint:

> 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.

(i) Does YouTube have "technological protection measures" that prevent downloading? In the case of the AACS controversy, this was a bit more clear-cut: there was a secret key that was cracked, but what exactly is being "circumvented" in this case?

(ii) Nowhere does youtube-dl advertise that it's to be used to "reproduce and distribute" without authorization.

I feel like this is a YouTube ToS violation, not a DMCA-strike-worthy copyright violation.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#182

Post by Google234 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #174
tracker1 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had similar issues on a recent camping trip since the switch from google play music to youtube music... when I lose connectivity, there's no buffer, and seems to be no songs kept to be able to play anything , and it was a really crappy experience. May have to go back to spotify or offline mp3 files, I don't miss having to manage my own playlists tbh.

Google's engineering is not about providing a good user experience, but about using metrics to squeeze out the last 1% of inefficiency. This inevitably makes the system fragile and leaves some people out in the cold, but you're the product, not the customer. Some people would argue that optimising YouTube for the bottom 1% of Internet connections makes no financial sense, but I have gigabit fibre and YouTube stutters…

Your comments seems contradictory. How is optimizing to provide a good experience for those with bad internet not providing a good user experience? I have fast internet and it works fine for me, maybe the problem is on your end?

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#183

Post by CobrastanJorji »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #165
dredmorbius wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law enforcement already has an anti-circ exemption under 17 USC 1201(e), though a finding against youtube-dl would limit it's (or similar tools') availability and/or functionality. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

Honest question: How is Section 1201 anything other than incoherent? Suppose there is some legitimate non-infringing use of some material. Interoperability, law enforcement use, fair use, accessing public domain material which is distributed using the same technological measures, whatever. You create and distribute a piece of software to interface with the material for those purposes. It's the same piece of software…

The tool itself is not inherently illegal. Intent and marketing is the only important factor.

A tool designed to be used by police and marketed towards police is legal, as its intended purpose is not infringement. A tool advertised as "hey, kids, use this to infringe those copyrights" is totally different, even if it's literally the same tool.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#184

Post by sudosysgen »

renewiltord wrote: post #167
megous wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevance is "Having said that, can we please stop pretending like any of us weren’t using this to infringe copyright?" I'm not pretending if I'm not violating, even if I'm downloading the copyrighted videos.

Well obviously it doesn’t apply to you then. I feel like this is really easy to understand.

The word "any" has a specific meaning. Most people in the world aren't American and most countries at least from my experience allow private copying.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#185

Post by sudosysgen »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #53
nullc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> did themselves a legal disservice by explicitly using copyrighted music video content as tests. They had no alternative other than not having tests for that particular functionality. The tests were testing youtube-partner specific functionality: the procedure needed to download content from some youtube partners is different. Moreover, the tests just throw away the downloaded material... it would be entirely reason…

The fact that they had to have tests set to get around certain partners — partners who, it could be argued, had different provisions to try to limit the download of their content - works against them. In retrospect, it would have been much better to link to an external repo or site or source for the test file, rather than to have that as part of the GitHub repo. ETA: you’re right that they were always going to go aft…

Not really, it's important that yt-dl be able to download partnered content to allow for their fair use.

Plus, the unit test IIRC only downloaded a 100KB (thus less than one second) chunk.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#186

Post by tssva »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #165
dredmorbius wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law enforcement already has an anti-circ exemption under 17 USC 1201(e), though a finding against youtube-dl would limit it's (or similar tools') availability and/or functionality. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

Honest question: How is Section 1201 anything other than incoherent? Suppose there is some legitimate non-infringing use of some material. Interoperability, law enforcement use, fair use, accessing public domain material which is distributed using the same technological measures, whatever. You create and distribute a piece of software to interface with the material for those purposes. It's the same piece of software…

Section 1201 requires that the piece of software is meant primarily for infringing purposes. Which means that it being able to infringe alone isn't enough for it to violate 1201, but also that because it can be used for non-infringing purposes doesn't mean it doesn't violate 1201. As with many many laws intent matters and deciding intent is why we have judges and juries.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#187

Post by sudosysgen »

roywiggins wrote: post #153
comeonseriously wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the argument is whether or not obfuscation is DRM? If that's true anyone can claim that some weird URL scheme is DRM. That's a dangerous slope to tread.

I think it is, too, but "is this sufficiently obfuscatory to fall under the DMCA or not" is really only something a court can decide- it's not a technical question. So "this is obviously not DRM" is an argument, but until a court says otherwise the RIAA seems to have a leg to stand on.

I mean, technically, can this be called obfuscation when Google provides to you the code to de obfuscate it?

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#188

Post by AnthonyMouse »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #183
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: How is Section 1201 anything other than incoherent? Suppose there is some legitimate non-infringing use of some material. Interoperability, law enforcement use, fair use, accessing public domain material which is distributed using the same technological measures, whatever. You create and distribute a piece of software to interface with the material for those purposes. It's the same piece of software…

The tool itself is not inherently illegal. Intent and marketing is the only important factor. A tool designed to be used by police and marketed towards police is legal, as its intended purpose is not infringement. A tool advertised as "hey, kids, use this to infringe those copyrights" is totally different, even if it's literally the same tool.

But then most of the defenses of the RIAA's actions here don't make any sense. When the purpose of youtube-dl is to enable the likes of mpv interoperating with YouTube then having RIAA music in the unit tests would be apropos of nothing because it would be completely valid to want to test the interoperability with RIAA music from YouTube.

Moreover, that would save the law from being a dead letter in the sense that there would be circumstances when it could theoretically be enforced (i.e. when someone is overtly marketing it as a tool for infringement), but wouldn't anybody making the tool then just not do that? It's still exactly the same tool. And then what does the tool have to do with anything anyway, when what you really have is a law against speech promoting copyright infringement?

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#189

Post by nitrogen »

tracker1 wrote: post #157
Fnoord wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Twitch streamers have a browser window open and pause it to comment.

HDCP protections added to Chrome in 3...2... edit: I only meant this in so much that it's entirely possible for Google, that controls both Chrome (the biggest browser) and YouTube (biggest online video site) to encable DHCP restrictions on video capture from within the browser for sites (such as YouTube) that might implement it. Given their proclivity towards giving the RIAA/MPAA whatever they ask for, it wouldn't su…

> DHCP protections...

I'm guessing you meant HDCP?

I'm pretty sure that encrypted media sites already use HDCP because my projector glitches for a few seconds sometimes when I first navigate to Prime Video, and whenever I have a secondary analog VGA monitor connected Prime Video will only play in standard definition.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#190

Post by renewiltord »

sudosysgen wrote: post #184
renewiltord wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well obviously it doesn’t apply to you then. I feel like this is really easy to understand.

The word "any" has a specific meaning. Most people in the world aren't American and most countries at least from my experience allow private copying.

I genuinely can’t believe you’ve decided to do this. I’m ashamed to have even participated in this. I’m outtie.
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