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…
YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
311–320 of 686 posts
Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well anyone who voluntarily enters into a work for hire arrangement is making society a better place. The employer wouldn't have done it unless they were benefitting and likewise for the employee. What is important is doing something people want.
An assassin is a work for a hire arrangement.
Everybody has their price. For some people, it's low enough that they'll actually do the evil things and not lose sleep over it.
Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
#313A gem in the EFF's letter ( https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-1... ) > To borrow an analogy from literature, travelers come upon a door that has writing in a foreign language. When translated, the writing says "say 'friend' and enter." The travelers say "friend" and the door opens. As with the writing on that door, YouTube presents instructions on accessing video streams to everyone who comes…
I personally agree, but there are some interesting counter-examples. For example, if someone discloses the credentials to an account but says nobody is authorized to use those credentials, I think it violates the CFAA to use those credentials. Even more-so if they only tell you their username, but the password can be inferred without direct disclosure (e.g., if the username is "thepasswordishunter2").
Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Thank you so much for writing this comment! I've been in several situations where this would have been incredibly handy, but never realized it was possible.
There's all kinds of cool stuff you can do with youtube-dl. For example 'ytsearch20:kittens' will get a playlist of the first 20 search results for 'kittens'.
Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd rather cut this problem off at the head I don't understand what you mean by this! I know it's an expression or a way of saying something, but I don't understand what you mean
The meaning is to deal with a problem before it grows worse. There are a lot of variances to the expression, 'cutting it off at the head' 'Nip it in the bud' 'Cutting the problem at it's roots' They're all references to killing something before it grows more difficult to deal with.
Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have become convinced that the RIAA lawyers emerge from their crypts every few years, generating a slew of copystrikes to justify their retainer fee.
This software makes it easy for people to download copyrighted movies and the RIAA attorneys (at least some) are acting in good faith to prevent people from breaking copyright law and causing their client damages. Can someone argue against me please? (genuinely contribute to discussion by arguing against my own biases, call me a moron instead of downvoting)
Copyright law seems to be one of the only areas in which the fact that someone Could use a tool to commit a crime seems to be grounds for criminalizing the tool and not the act.
Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
#317Competition 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.
Sadly, I don't think there is any risk for them for "losing developers en-masse to competitors". Everyone who seriously considers to leave the platform has already left when they were acquired by MS and/or continued to work with ICE, and both of those only caused a miniscule amount of people to leave.
Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
#318Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Creating or providing a tool and using a tool are not the same action. Likewise, since there are legal fair use scenarios of copyrighted materials (short clips, criticism, satire, academic, etc) so even using the tool isn't inherently against the law and the person creating or providing the tools can't know and legally doesn't need to know the end user's intentions. Copyright lawyers working for the highest profile a…
Drug paraphernalia is still a crime in most places. Not sure what the equal to "spice grinder" here is.
Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored
#320ACLU and EFF are two of the last few remaining "Great" American institutions - living up to America's own image of itself.