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YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA

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

#311

Post by aylmao »

aquova wrote: post #139

While its good to get a backup of the source code, youtube-dl is one of those projects that quickly becomes useless as Google mixes stuff around within YouTube, which they like to do. Without an active developer base, the project will quickly become less and less effective, which is one of the big concerns IMO about this lawsuit.

I imagine someone can re-publish it on Github without it being taken down if they rename it, change the README and/or add some disclaimer saying this tool shouldn't be used to download copyrighted works.

Collaboration to keep it up to date hopefully follows soon after.

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

#312

Post by nsgi »

orliesaurus wrote: post #13

> 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 example, as shown on Exhibit A, the source code expressly suggests its use to copy and/or distribute the following copyrighted works owned by our member companies IMHO this wasn't the best move, I mean... t…

Yeah, an example downloading a video of Elephant's Dream or a tech conference talk would have worked just as well and imply the tool has primarily legitimate uses

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

#313

Post by DennisP »

yamrzou wrote: post #215
aquova wrote: post #139

While its good to get a backup of the source code, youtube-dl is one of those projects that quickly becomes useless as Google mixes stuff around within YouTube, which they like to do. Without an active developer base, the project will quickly become less and less effective, which is one of the big concerns IMO about this lawsuit.

What if collaboration on opensource projects (i.e. hosting, issues and their comments) was decentralized instead of relying on a central entity like Github? That would keep the developer base active and make DMCA takedowns ineffective.

Since git is already decentralized, this definitely seems doable.

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

#314

Post by tartoran »

marcinzm wrote: post #163
kzrdude wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should it stand up to legal scrutiny though? What does it matter if I play the beatles on youtube by watching in a web browser or watching an .mp4 file that I just downloaded? It's functionally the same.

The former gives money to the original content owner for every listen while the latter does not. Which is why you're able to listen to it on youtube without having to personally pay someone.

Someone who is capable of downloading youtube videos can easily block ads and many do, not because ads are bad but because they are both excessive in any form possible and a malware spreading channel. I do too but don’t bother to download videos because it is still more convent to watch’em directly on youtube. But it seems those days are coming to an end soon, lets see

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

#315

Post by cipherboy »

orliesaurus wrote: post #13

> 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 example, as shown on Exhibit A, the source code expressly suggests its use to copy and/or distribute the following copyrighted works owned by our member companies IMHO this wasn't the best move, I mean... t…

It wasn't in the repo's README: it was part of the test suite for better or worse.

See: youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py line L557

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

#316

Post by agency »

nsgi wrote: post #293
jordigh wrote: post #86

I'm very scared by this. youtube-dl needs somewhat frequent updates as Google moves the youtube codebase around. I'm worried that the RIAA's next move, now that it's starting to get inconvenient to get youtube-dl, will be to make Youtube change in some way to make existing copies of youtube-dl no longer work. youtube-dl has been my primary way of getting videos since I learned about it. If the RIAA manages to kill it…

Do you have some sort of RMS-style setup? If so, I'm curious about your reasons for that and why mainstream browsers aren't an option for you

Not the OP but I’m a heavy youtube-dl user. I live in a rural area where my only internet option is satellite (HughesNet) which is basically unusable for any kind of streaming media. I rent an office in town to do software work and use youtube-dl to download videos for later viewing at home.

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

#319

Post by saddlerustle »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #223
eli wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DMCA is a bad law, but you'd have a harder time arguing a general purpose web browser meets any of the following conditions: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 (2)No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that— (A)is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a techn…

Can you argue that youtube-dl meets any of those conditions? You can argue that youtube-dl facilitates making copies of copyrighted works; that's easy. But the items A, B, and C that you quote all require circumventing a technological measure that controls access to a protected work. And youtube videos, in the general case, have completely uncontrolled access. You can't circumvent measures that don't exist.

The referenced german court ruling, which is probably "Schutzgesetzverletzung: Umgehung von wirksamen technischen Maßnahmen auf Streaming-Portalen zum Schutz urheberrechtlich geschützter Musikwerke durch Konvertierungssoftware" found that the signature cipher used by YouTube counts an effective TPM. The code in youtube-dl that bypasses this is `YoutubeIE._decrypt_signature` in youtube.py

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

#320

Post by drKarl »

jaspergilley wrote: post #224
yamrzou wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if collaboration on opensource projects (i.e. hosting, issues and their comments) was decentralized instead of relying on a central entity like Github? That would keep the developer base active and make DMCA takedowns ineffective.

In light of this DMCA, this seems like a site that needs to exist...but I don't know of one? Seems like as trivial a build as anything cryptographic actually

Well, there's git over SSB (Secure Scuttlebutt) and got over IPF (Interplanetary Filesystem)... That should be distributed uncensorable git...
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