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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

#391

Post by jonas21 »

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.

If there weren't any technological measures preventing you from downloading and saving YouTube videos, then youtube-dl wouldn't exist. You would just download the video from YouTube yourself.

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

#392

Post by Lex-2008 »

mmaunder wrote: post #226
CivBase wrote: post #99

> this seems outrageous the same way DMCA'ing a Bittorrent client would be Why stop there? I can use my browser to illegally download content, so I guess we better issue a DMCA takedown that too. But who even needs a browser? Let's issue a takedown for the GNU Project while we're at it because I could use wget to do the same thing. In fact, I could write my own program to illegally download content, so we better just…

This logic could have been used to outright ban dual cassette tape decks in the 80s. Why not ban the pen, since it can be used to hand copy books. RIAA needs to stay in their lane.

Can't find a better source, but something like this tried to happen, indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music

Upd: In another thread, the "Betamax case" was cited.

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

#393

Post by loup-vaillant »

kevincox wrote: post #94
jchw wrote: post #4

Note that RIAA is making this takedown because the software CAN be used to download copyrighted music and videos, and it uses examples in the ~~README~~(unit tests, see correction[1]) as an example of that: > 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…

It seems to me that they are making the claim that this tool is expressly for doing something that is forbidden by the YouTube TOS and breaking the music licenses provided. Of course YouTube has other videos that are under different licenses so it isn't clear that this is the only use case of the software.

Wait a minute, there's a difference between distributed copyrighted works, and merely copying it for yourself. In France for instance, we have this notion of "copie privée" (private copy), that says we are allowed to copy anything as long as we don't distribute it back. We even pay taxes on persistent memory for the privilege.

Up thread there's also a citation of the Betamax case, which says that it's okay for people to record shows so they can watch them later, and it's okay to sell video recording devices.

This is different from Bittorent, which automatically distribute any content you download. With this too, when you are downloading, you are also distributing, which is a much clearer case of infringement in most jurisdictions.

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

#394

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

CivBase wrote: post #246
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…

I think youtube-dl failed 1201(a)(2)(C) and 1201(a)(2)(C) because of that README. Like I said, they should fix the README. However, I still consider it rotten that they would forcibly take down a project as big as youtube-dl because of something so innocuous. A simple "cease and desist" against the youtube-dl project regarding their README examples almost certainly would have been sufficient. Instead, the RIAA took n…

Lawyers are not engineers. Corporate lawyers are mercenary thugs with assistants, expensive suits, and very very very high daily rates.

This is the kind of thing is that lawyers do, because this is what they're paid to do.

You cannot win this by simply saying "Hands off our code - this is outrageous" because that's not how the law works.

If you want to make an argument agains this you literally have to make it stand up in court, and that is not easy.

While lawyers are sometimes foul and shameless creatures, the engineering community does not seem to understand that it is not playing on its own turf here.

If you do not take the time to understand the rules of the game you will lose hard. In this case the RIAA could easily have sued for damages and loss of earnings - and it would probably win that case if it came to court, although someone in counsel probably argued (wisely) that it wouldn't be worth the Streisand Effect damage.

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

#396

Post by kelnos »

3np wrote: post #19

It's outrageous indeed that GH/MS is complying. It's not that far from targeting wget or curl, were it not for the widespread use of them in industry.

> It's outrageous indeed that GH/MS is complying.

Not really. They're legally required to do so. The DMCA notice (despite what someone suggests downthread) is unfortunately quite properly served. Even if it is flat-out wrong, GH/MS has no reason (and likely no resources) to investigate whether or not that's the case. And if they did, and got it wrong, they'd lose their safe harbor status and be liable for damages.

If the youtube-dl author believes it to be bullshit, they can send a counter-notice, and GH/MS will then put it back up. If the RIAA still has a bone to pick, they can file a lawsuit. Unfortunately, they very well may.

> It's not that far from targeting wget or curl, were it not for the widespread use of them in industry.

I get really confused when I hear things like this, because this makes no sense. Targeting a program called "YouTube Download", which has the main purpose of downloading clean copies of YT videos, against the wishes of the content creators is absolutely not the same thing as targeting a generic HTTP/FTP download tool.

I think the DMCA is garbage, but it feels like willful ignorance to be at all surprised about things like this, and to compare this to something obviously non-infringing.

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

#397

Post by bleepblorp »

fivre wrote: post #168

Is there any legislative or regulatory work that is trying to address the gigantic mess that is music (or media in general) copyright and licensing in the US? The DMCA is over 2 decades old, and seemingly nothing useful has come up since. The current system seems to do not much other than provide a big stick for the RIAA and MPAA to wield whenever they get bored and try to extract rent using law that still seems stuc…

The DMCA was intended to give large content publishers a big stick to extract rent from third parties without needing to do any work. It is functioning as intended and is very unlikely to be reformed to favor the public interest.

If anything, the next DMCA will be tilted even further towards publisher interests. The latest EU publisher payout copyright 'reform' -- which, among other things, banned photography of buildings and skylines -- is the most likely model for the next US copyright 'reform' measure.

Congress only passes laws that large piles of money pay for[0], so the only prospect of copyright reform is if someone puts up a billion dollars in campaign contributions (bribes). Further money may be needed to re-stack the judiciary to ensure a reform will survive the wide-eyed fanatics on the USSC. This scenario is deeply unlikely as piles of money large enough to afford to spend a billion dollars purchasing legislation are very happy with the law as it stands.

[0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...

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

#399

Post by [deleted] »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #70
molmalo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same thing: The next step following this line of thinking would be trying to ban all torrent clients, because they CAN be used to download copyrighted material. This is crazy.

Why stop with torrent clients? They should ban all browsers, because they CAN be used to download copyrighted materials!

[deleted]

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

#400

Post by tanseydavid »

Lex-2008 wrote: post #392
mmaunder wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This logic could have been used to outright ban dual cassette tape decks in the 80s. Why not ban the pen, since it can be used to hand copy books. RIAA needs to stay in their lane.

Can't find a better source, but something like this tried to happen, indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music Upd: In another thread, the "Betamax case" was cited.

Digital Audio Tape DAT -- they tried REALLY hard to keep this technology out of the US market. Eventually they got a the authorities to impose a surcharge per blank DAT tape for 'lost income'.

Writable CDs came soon after which was probably going to kill DAT market no matter what.

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