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Origins of the youtube-dl project

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Re: Origins of the youtube-dl project

#61

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

boogies wrote: post #55
throw0101a wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YouTube used to have a freely accessible search API. Twitter used to have RSS/Atom feeds for each account so you could follow someone without a client, just a regular old news aggregator.

AFAIK they still do, just without any way to find it except by digging into the channel page’s HTML to find the channel_id and then constructing the feed URL from that (“ https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=$channel... ) — or (edit) using something like https://github.com/rss-bridge/rss-bridge that presumably does something like that under the hood — so I guess scraping for an undocumented API.

I have used that /feeds/videos.xml URL for retrieving a list of all videos in a playlist (playlist_id), but I have not used it for channels. What is the maximum number of results that one can retrieve. Without any additional parameters, it looks like it only returns 15 videos by default.

Personally, for channels, I use a script only needs to access the channel's page; it outputs a list of all the videos in the channel. One of the more recent web development trends I dislike are sites that "load more results" using additional Javascript-triggered HTTP requests in response to scrolling a page. YouTube channels with multiple pages of videos are one example.

With custom scripts I wrote for searching YouTube, outputting lists of videos from channels, and downloading non-commercial videos, I can use YouTube without the need a graphical browser.

Re: Origins of the youtube-dl project

#62

Post by woofie11 »

qw3rty01 wrote: post #56
woofie11 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, what the RIAA did isn't illegal. They sent a letter. I'm allowed to send a legal demand letter to you demanding 5 donkeys and a cow for having an insulting username, and even phrase it in Very Intimidating Ways. You're also welcome to ignore it. I can even file a law suit. I won't win (and you can then ask the judge for legal fees), but I'm not doing anything illegal. What github did probably wasn't ille…

Hmm this isn't really true, DMCA takedown requests aren't just a "legal demand" in the sense that anyone can file them, it actually is illegal to file an invalid DMCA takedown request. My point is that the RIAA's DMCA takedown request was valid. (IANAL) The law is also a lot more nuanced than how you described, since the hypothetical case would probably be thrown out with legal fees covered due to anti-SLAPP laws, bu…

IANAL either, but the RIAA letter never claimed to be a valid DMCA 512 takedown letter. It simply listed a series of facts, beliefs, opinions, and requests, none of which seem fraudulent, as far as my lay reading goes.

If someone sends you a letter saying:

"Dear qw3rty01: You're hosting Python. Python can be used to circumvent my copy protection provisions. I believe this is illegal under 17 USC §§1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1). I ask that you immediately take down and disable access to Python."

They're allowed to do that.

So long as they have a genuine belief that Python violates §§1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1), they've sent a stupid letter, not an illegal one. I believe your only recourse is to ignore it.

Your understanding of legal fees is incorrect:

1) I don't need a countersuit to recover legal fees. I can generally file a motion in the original litigation.

2) The US doesn't have federal anti-SLAPP laws. Some states have anti-SLAPP, but even there, there are open legal questions on how state laws interact with federal law suits. Unless you happen to live in a state with anti-SLAPP and one where precedent says state anti-SLAPP laws apply to a federal law suit, you're probably out of luck.

3) Even so, anti-SLAPP is designed for specific types of legal intimidation; I'm not sure this would qualify.

I just looked at the RIAA DMCA repo, and the situation is more complex than reported. The RIAA got a court ruling of some sort in Germany. That throws all sorts of wrenches into all sorts of analyses.

Re: Origins of the youtube-dl project

#63

Post by michaelmior »

greggman3 wrote: post #20
michaelmior wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I can understand your frustration, I also understand the frustration of photographers and other creators trying to make a living who have their work stolen. Their anger was wrongly directed at you, but it is a real problem.

While I agree with you that photographers are hurt by having their photos copied I'm not convinced my app was a problem. I personally doubt anyone was using it to bulk download copywritten photos and somehow use those photos. I could be wrong but I believe most people that steal photos still them a few at time. Basically they're making some article, they need a related photo, they search, grab a 2 to 5 and stick them…

I wasn't intending to suggest you were contributing to the problem. If others used your tool improperly, that's not your fault. But I can understand why some photographers who have had their content stolen could be upset. As far as Flickr's response in banning your app, it does seem at least misguided. I also wonder if they were concerned about making it too easy for people to move to another platform.

Re: Origins of the youtube-dl project

#64

Post by michaelmior »

deepspace wrote: post #21
michaelmior wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I can understand your frustration, I also understand the frustration of photographers and other creators trying to make a living who have their work stolen. Their anger was wrongly directed at you, but it is a real problem.

I would argue that the "stealing" does not happen at the time of download; after all the photos are free to view on Flickr as many times as you want, and your browser needs to 'download' them in order to show them to you. Saving a copy to your own hard drive for offline viewing does not fundamentally change that interaction. It is only when you re-publish the photos that it becomes theft of intellectual property.

I would agree with that, although it could still be the case where a tool which technically does not violate any laws is still used to ultimately facilitate illegal activity. In which case I think it would be reasonable for a platform to ban the use of such a tool.

Re: Origins of the youtube-dl project

#65

Post by michaelmior »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #25
michaelmior wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I can understand your frustration, I also understand the frustration of photographers and other creators trying to make a living who have their work stolen. Their anger was wrongly directed at you, but it is a real problem.

It's also off-topic, and it's especially off-topic because it was misdirected. The response to "my legitimate tool was attacked because people thought it was for X" should not be to talk about the problem of X and why it's important. It should be to figure out how we prevent useful tools from being taken down. Amplifying a different problem, the fear of which led to breaking a useful tool, does not help. Also, if you…

> It should be to figure out how we prevent useful tools from being taken down

I would argue that recognizing the reason that useful tools are taken down, even if you argue that reason is not legitimate, is an important part of figuring out how to stop those tools from being taken down.

> Also, if you don't want something downloaded, don't post it on the Internet in the first place.

I understand the argument although I do wish photographers could be free to post their work without fear of others taking it.

Re: Origins of the youtube-dl project

#66

Post by JetSpiegel »

boogies wrote: post #60
throw0101a wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking about Youtube : I am talking about Twitter .

Oops, my bad. https://nitter.net/ is a nice alternative Twitter frontend with RSS feeds btw.

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nitter-git/

It's even on AUR, for easy usage.

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