YouTube-dl's repository has been restored • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#231

Post by kodah » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

ryanar wrote: post #184

It seems like EFF fought for youtube-dl and GitHub used their letter as legal firepower to bring the repo back online. If GitHub were fighting for the developer they would have funded the attorney, right? Though from their blog post it does look like they are taking steps to fund defense in the future as well as other steps to improve the situation. Reading EFFs claim is pretty interesting, they state that saving a c…

Open question to HackerNews: are there big tech firms that give lobbying money to free software lobbyists?

Feel free to highlight them here.

I'd rather cut this problem off at the head than sit around and establish legal defense funds if possible. I'm glad GitHub and Microsoft could help contribute to this victory though.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#232

Post by bigbubba » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

boogies wrote: post #226

bigbubba wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that youtube-dl does more than just download videos. It can also be used for downloading metadata. I use -J to download metadata formatted as JSON.

How much of that metadata is not normally downloaded alongside the video?

Plenty of it? I regularly download the metadata and subtitles of entire channels or playlists so that I can search for specific words or phrases in thousands of hours of video. I know of no other way to accomplish this.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#233

Post by huhtenberg » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

I take GH/Microsoft won't implement any punitive counter-measures for frivolous 1201 claims?

Their new claim processing appears to be fairly resource-heavy. It'd be only fair to recover some of the costs they will end up sinking into it.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#234

Post by floatingatoll » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

Previously in DMCA 1201 takedowns, Admiral anti-adblocking v. EasyList (2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990137

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#235

Post by jraph » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

Torkel wrote: post #18

The amount of publicity this generated for youtube-dl is astounding... I would love for this to be a ”the plan to get rid of youtube-dl backfired badly for RIAA” ending. But I guess RIAA is reviled enough already so nothing they do really matters. So I suppose the hope is that some political will to change the laws around this arises from it.

Some clever people working for the RIAA might have suggested to their lawyers that they take down the youtube-dl repository to generate some publicity around the project.

And now they are pretending "What is this youtube-dl thing everybody is talking about recently?"

RIAA, you are heroes. That's very nice to promote underfunded free software projects like this.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#236

Post by jefftk » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

JosephRedfern wrote: post #158

detaro wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either they just switched back, or they have it pick from multiple mirrors.

Yeah, makes sense!

Either way, though, they are not hosting it on their website contra the GGGGP (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25112011)

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#237

Post by fastball » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #203

Daniel_sk wrote: post #171

Good job GitHub and Microsoft!

Microsoft is a member of RIAA.

And also the owner of Github.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#238

Post by mmastrac » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

Competition in the source-control space is a great thing. I am not entirely convinced that they would have done the right thing without the threat of losing developers en-masse to competitors.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#239

Post by aDfbrtVt » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #186

aDfbrtVt wrote: post #178

Can someone with more knowledge on the matter help explain why downloading copyrighted material using youtube-dl as opposed to a browser is treated differently under the DMCA? In either case you're accessing copyrighted material by downloading from youtube's servers.

> Can someone with more knowledge on the matter help explain why downloading copyrighted material using youtube-dl as opposed to a browser is treated differently under the DMCA? It's not. It may be treated differently under other parts of copyright law based on implied license or other theory, but the DMCA impact is on distributing, offering, etc. youtube-dl, not using it, insofar as it constitutes a circumvention to…

My understanding is that it's takedown was due to fact that youtube-dl "bypasses technical measures that control access or copying of copyrighted works". I don't see how youtube-dl could be considered a "circumvention tool" if the end user of said tool would have access to the content if they used a web browser instead.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#240

Post by werid » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

swyx wrote: post #96

3.3k issues, 756 open PRs. do they need help?

this is why it was forked a bit before the takedown, youtube-dlc contains fixes not in main youtube-dl. the guy who forked it tried to help but got banned from posting and helping out.

https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc

as of last youtube-dl version, the main youtube-dl behaves differently if you simply point it to a youtube channel, while youtube-dlc behaves as you'd expect... i keep both around for now.