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YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

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Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#661

Post by jhasse »

kelnos wrote: post #598
jhasse wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should use the power of Chrome to discourage the use of DRM on the web instead.

Given that Google is the author of the main browser-based content decryption module in use (Widevine), and Google also has a bunch of content provider partnerships to maintain, and they run YouTube, which in some ways relies on content owners not getting pissed off and suing it out of existence (content owners are the reason YT has ContentID, not because of any legal requirement)... I don't think it's in Google's bes…

> I don't think it's in Google's best financial interest to fight against DRM. So they won't do that.

Yep, it's much cheaper to ensure employees to give money to EFF ;)

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#662

Post by cseberino »

wpietri wrote: post #107
cseberino wrote: post #89

Earlier 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.

That is definitely not the case. There are plenty of employers making things worse. One of my first jobs was for a telephone fundraising outfit. We'd cold-call people, manipulate and like to them, so they'd donate money for our charity of the week, and keep 85% of it. Making society better requires actually making society better. You have to weigh the total societal positives against the total societal negatives.

OK let me qualify my answer. Voluntary financial arrangements are beneficial to society that do not harm others. The government in capitalistic systems enforces the rule that you can't harm one another arbitrarily. So an assassination contract would be illegal. Also, defrauding people with cold calls of their money is illegal. In short, LEGAL voluntary arrangements in a free market are beneficial.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#663

Post by CivBase »

scrollaway wrote: post #647
CivBase wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it takes some mental gymnastics to not see this post as a really positive turn from GH. So... why did the EFF have to step in here? GitHub deserves some credit, but I cannot give them all of the credit. As far as I can tell, this situation was at a stand still for the better part of a month until the EFF got involved.

The EFF's letter gave them the legal justification they needed to restore it. It helped. The fact they restored everything in just a day after receiving it makes that pretty clear. They didn't need to evaluate their options much at all; as soon as they received it, the repo was back. I wouldn't even be surprised to learn that the EFF talked off the record with GitHub beforehand.

Why didn't they have "the legal justification they needed to restore it" before the EFF sent their letter? We're talking about Microsoft here. I do not believe they are so helpless.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#664

Post by boomboomsubban »

crtasm wrote: post #659
boomboomsubban wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you mean, but the extractor file still features how to deal with videos containing the cipher, all that was removed was the tests. Testing the generic cipher video may have been ruled unnecessary as it's universal.

That's the partial win here - repo restored with tests referencing the RIAA related videos removed but the code dealing with the rolling cipher itself still intact. And next time youtube makes one of their frequent changes to their website the extractor will break in some way. Somebody will work to fix it and make use of the same tests, only now some of them won't be in the public codebase.

Except we haven't established whether there was anything special about those videos at all

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#665

Post by wgjordan »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #656
wgjordan wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading the EFF's letter a little more closely, I realize now that it wasn't even a formal DMCA counter notice representing the repository owners, just an informal legal rebuttal of the original claims. Oops. So GitHub wasn't legally required to restore access at all even after 10-14 days, since no official counter notice was ever received. That makes it more significant (not merely symbolic) that GitHub chose…

Not true. The first sentence of the first paragraph make mention that the EFF is representing the youtube-dl developers. An attorney-client relationship. > The Electronic Frontier Foundation represents the current maintainers of the youtube-dl software utility, a free software project that uses GitHub as a home for development.

Thanks for pointing out the mention of representation. However the letter still lacked two required elements for it to be an effective formal counter notice:

- §512(g)(3)(C): A 'statement under penalty of perjury' that the material was removed by mistake.

- §512(g)(3)(D): A statement 'consent[ing] to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located', and to 'accept service of process from the person who provided notification'.

These are also noted as requirements in GitHub's counter notice policy [1] numbers 4 and 5.

I think it's also telling that GitHub never referred to this letter anywhere as a 'counter notice', only mentioning it as 'new information' they received about the project.

[1] https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/site-...

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#666

Post by [deleted] »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #143
chongli wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that those obfuscation methods were exclusive to certain YouTube partners, including the RIAA members. If youtube-dl stopped supporting that method, it would still be a useful tool for the bulk of its use cases and the RIAA would no longer have any leg to stand on since it'd no longer be able to download their members' videos.

Breaking copy protection is only illegal if you do not have a license to the work. Removing the protection breaking code isn't necessary, and everyone needs to stop pretending that it is. This same clause of the DMCA is the suspected reason for py-kms's reinstatement after a takedown: it's perfectly legal to break the Windows license scheme if you already own a license to Windows.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#667

Post by crtasm »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #664
crtasm wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the partial win here - repo restored with tests referencing the RIAA related videos removed but the code dealing with the rolling cipher itself still intact. And next time youtube makes one of their frequent changes to their website the extractor will break in some way. Somebody will work to fix it and make use of the same tests, only now some of them won't be in the public codebase.

Except we haven't established whether there was anything special about those videos at all

But on the other hand there is always an omelette to whisk.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#668

Post by remram »

Fumtumi wrote: post #636
remram wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't they start with youtube-dl though? They will defend developers and err on their side "going forward" but no not that one ? Surely they already had the legal manpower when the youtube-dl removal started making waves. The fact that they did nothing for over three weeks and are publishing this blog post right after the issue was fixed by someone else (EFF) makes it hard to believe their "changes".

My daily work is often not adhoc or that fast; I'm not sure why this is so unrelatable to you but for me, daily business is, that things just take 1-3 weeks. Legal manpower still means, that people interrupt their current tasks, which they properly have plenty of, to reprioritize something, others might even not care about at all or never heard of. I stay with my statement and i have enough live experience, that i do…

I didn't expect any "3 minute solution", but realistically they didn't even have to get the problem fixed. They could have pledged to assist youtube-dl by now, helped them file a counter-notice sometime this week (surely they can get 1 lawyer's time for pressing PR matters), and figured out how to deal with the human resource situation over the coming months.

Instead they found a million dollars (!!!), wrote a blog post with explicit commitments, but then waited on somebody else to step up. It just doesn't add up.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#669

Post by spullara »

kevingadd wrote: post #531
spullara wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the Widevine password essentially public as it is distributed to the client where it was extracted? Or was the Widevine key somehow stolen from Google's private repository?

There are multiple widevine keys, some are in CPU memory (shipped with the client software), some are in trusted enclaves on devices. Some of the trusted enclave keys have been dumped from hardware (nexus 6 for one, iirc) and eventually those keys were revoked or downgraded

IMHO, if it is on the client, it is public.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#670

Post by Fumtumi »

remram wrote: post #668
Fumtumi wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daily work is often not adhoc or that fast; I'm not sure why this is so unrelatable to you but for me, daily business is, that things just take 1-3 weeks. Legal manpower still means, that people interrupt their current tasks, which they properly have plenty of, to reprioritize something, others might even not care about at all or never heard of. I stay with my statement and i have enough live experience, that i do…

I didn't expect any "3 minute solution", but realistically they didn't even have to get the problem fixed. They could have pledged to assist youtube-dl by now, helped them file a counter-notice sometime this week (surely they can get 1 lawyer's time for pressing PR matters), and figured out how to deal with the human resource situation over the coming months. Instead they found a million dollars (!!!), wrote a blog p…

Someone on github had to care for this project; Then someone with the proper level had to care for this and understand the situation.

Then you need meetings.

You need to 'coordinate' your message or whatever.

You need to talk to the legal department and stuff.

What is not 'adding up'?

And why is it an issue that it took a little bit?

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