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How journalists use youtube-dl

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Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#201

Post by JAlexoid »

backtoyoujim wrote: post #148
neodymiumphish wrote: post #90

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…

"The process for a subpoena takes forever" No, it doesn't. And that "forever" are human rights that are established and should require a subpoena to contest.

That's for private, non publicly accessible, content.

If you post a video of murdering someone publicly - no subpoena should be required.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#203

Post by pdabbadabba »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #194
tssva wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That sounds a lot like saying that it is, indeed, incoherent, but don't worry because we can get a judge to decide whether or not you're going to jail ex post facto, at a cost to you of more than you paid for your house (win or lose).

I don't see where you're getting that. GP rightly pointed out that 1201 prohibits tools "primarily" designed for prohibited circumvention. That's a perfectly coherent thing to prohibit, and that has the perfectly clear, logical implications that GP described.

Now, if what you really mean is that is is vague, then I agree. But I don't see any case for it being incoherent.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#204

Post by JAlexoid »

echelon wrote: post #96
neuronflux wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the content is public, why would they need a subpoena?

Is availability on a locked, walled garden "public"? I think we can tell what the RIAA thinks about that.

RIAA doesn't dispute that it's public.

Being public doesn't mean publicly owned. It means publicly accessible... Like your local shopping mall.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#205

Post by vilifiedtwin »

nullc wrote: post #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 fr…

It seems like Google starts having a pattern of working with scammers. First they disabled phone call recordings in Android or made it super difficult to enable, now you can't use ytdl to download evidence.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#206

Post by jancsika »

> 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.

I'm so sick of hearing this "investigations want to be free" nonsense from law enforcement. Just because they want to pirate their investigations without paying they think it's ok for content creators to go hungry?

Get a job hippies.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#207

Post by BLKNSLVR »

dEnigma wrote: post #78
djsumdog wrote: 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…

It is really distressing to see how many of the videos in my, admittedly quite large, favourites list are gone by now. Even ones that I only added in the past few weeks. Either simply "Deleted", "Private" or "Removed/Blocked by the copyright holder". In most cases I have trouble even finding out what the title of the video even was.

This is an example of the dichotomy between "the internet remembers everything" and the inherent ephemerality of electronic data (effort is required to ensure it remains un-destroyed).

I self-host some things because I like the technical challenge, and what I've found is that the effort required to maintain the online presence of the data is quite demanding. Less so if it's outsourced, but without actively 'tending the garden', it will inevitably disappear at least from the public-facing internet.

The ephemerality is also exacerbated by Google / Facebook account terminations.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#208

Post by dredmorbius »

ryukafalz wrote: post #38
comeonseriously wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The “you can see it but you must watch and ad” model... ... funds OTA television. Also funds YT. With OTA, it is okay to record OTA broadcasts using a VCR, so I'm not sure why youtube-dl would be different.

DMCA section 1201 is not about copyright infringement. It’s there to make things that are not copyright infringement illegal. This is how John Deere got away with prohibiting farmers from repairing their tractors, etc. This is why time-shifting and format-shifting were just fine for OTA/cable television/CDs/etc but are practically nonexistent today.

Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/1201-v-dl-youtube/#1201

EFF:

https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca

https://www.eff.org/search/site/1201

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#209

Post by motohagiography »

lostgame wrote: post #173
motohagiography wrote: post #15

I used ffmpeg and audacity with youtube-dl to download and do file and spectrograph analysis on a faked political video. That analysis showing how the audio was spliced together may have killed the story before it got legs. In an era of fakes and deepfakes, we need tools like youtube-dl more than ever.

This is probably one of the coolest and most underrated comments in this topic! Could you tell us more about this process?

Thanks, it's way less cool when I write spectrogram instead of spectrograph. My mistake on that part.

If you use those tools, it's really straight forward process of using the tools. I didn't know about Audacity until I had spent most of my time figuring out ffmpeg/ffplay. It was an amateur effort, but I've done a lot of security analysis.

Re: How journalists use youtube-dl

#210

Post by digdigdag »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #16

Jokes on them! I have the source! And if it ever breaks I know how to patch it!

A long time ago, I wrote and maintained a fairly used Userscript plugin to scrape and download YouTube videos. Let me tell you -- without constant updates (which I've gotten complacent of by using `pip install --upgrade` with youtube-dl), I have forgotten just how much of a hassle it is to constantly fix the HTML parser used to identify and generate download URLs. The reality is, any front-end source code change on YouTube would potentially break the script, sometimes necessitating complete re-write of the parsing scheme. That is all to say, I hope you've set aside ample time and coffee for this hobby...
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