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Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

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Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#71

Post by mpalmer »

kmeisthax wrote: post #8

The problem is that whether or not downloading a YouTube video can be fair use, the RIAA is alleging that youtube-dl is a copy protection circumvention tool. 17 USC 1201(a)(2) does not care about your fair use, it only cares about keeping copying tools off the market. To bring this back into the home recording of radio, it'd be as if Congress decided to ban the sale of tape decks that could record radio transmissions…

    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 technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

    (B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
    (C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
I'm not a lawyer but how does youtube-dl fit any one of these criteria? despite the name, it's not "primarily designed to circumvent copyright", nor is copyright circumvention its only use (though "commercial significance" seems to be doing a lot of work here).

Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#72

Post by stcg »

deltree7 wrote: post #9

The hypocrisy of download defenders is exposed when re-distribution is the concern. Most content producers and publishers are fine with downloading as long as you don't re-distribute (which is theft), but we have no way of preventing that, so they are forced to close the download gate

That is not theft. It's communication. You can't "steal" ideas, information or facts [footnote]. To "steal" means to physically take someone's property without their consent.

Instead, you seem to mean a violation of copyright. Copyright exists "to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good." "The main purpose of the Copyright Act is the public good of use and access to works of art, even if such a public good comes at the expense of the author of the work." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Century_Music_Corp._...).

And then my opinion: In this age, copyright fails at that. It even has the opposite effect of resulting in less use and less access to works of art. I think it would benefit the public if copyright were abolished (or at least shortened to 20 years, similar to the amount of years that a person gets from a patent to exclusively produce and sell their invention before anyone may do that). I do think however that it should be a duty to mention the source or original author when sharing a work.

[footnote]: but you can neglect to mention the source, or uncover and share information someone wants to keep private

Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#73

Post by sillysaurusx »

akira2501 wrote: post #58
kmeisthax wrote: post #8

The problem is that whether or not downloading a YouTube video can be fair use, the RIAA is alleging that youtube-dl is a copy protection circumvention tool. 17 USC 1201(a)(2) does not care about your fair use, it only cares about keeping copying tools off the market. To bring this back into the home recording of radio, it'd be as if Congress decided to ban the sale of tape decks that could record radio transmissions…

> RIAA is alleging that youtube-dl is a copy protection circumvention tool "(3) As used in this subsection— (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a wo…

> Moreover, youtube is in no way connecting the "authority of the copyright owner" with the particular videos on it's site

Of course it is. That's the whole point of the three strike system.

Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#74

Post by BentonE »

38 wrote: post #49
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #41

Mastodon without Javascript enabled: https://mastodon.social/@HalvarFlake/110883667162838296/embe...

... also without comments. I appreciate the idea, but without the discussion its basically Twitter since they also hide replies with anonymous requests.

In principle, if you want the post and comments without JS you can just pull the underlying ActivityPub document (application/activity+json). I made a command-line browser based on this idea: https://github.com/bentonedmondson/servitor

Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#75

Post by surgical_fire »

MostlyStable wrote: post #45
doublepg23 wrote: post #36

It feels very human that we have a nearly post-scarcity delivery mechanism that we still optimize for rent seeking.

Yes. By design. Copyright law, and basically all other IP law, is explicitly and purposefully about allowing rent seeking. The idea is that in a completely unregulated market, it is impossible to make money from ideas after they are made public. Since making ideas public is good for society, we want to encourage people to continue to do this. Paying people is how we encourage people to do things. So we allow rent see…

> So we allow rent seeking, with limits

Funny joke. Everybody laughs.

Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#76

Post by ForHackernews »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #52
kmeisthax wrote: post #8

The problem is that whether or not downloading a YouTube video can be fair use, the RIAA is alleging that youtube-dl is a copy protection circumvention tool. 17 USC 1201(a)(2) does not care about your fair use, it only cares about keeping copying tools off the market. To bring this back into the home recording of radio, it'd be as if Congress decided to ban the sale of tape decks that could record radio transmissions…

> RIAA is alleging that youtube-dl is a copy protection circumvention tool How is it circumventing copy protection? IIRC videos on Youtube aren't DRMed. What protection method do they claim is being circumvented exactly?

> videos on Youtube aren't DRMed

They are: https://developers.google.com/widevine/drm/overview

Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#77

Post by userbinator »

There's technically no difference between downloading and streaming, and in fact nearly all of the videos I "download" from YouTube don't get retained after I watch them --- I'm just doing so in order to be able to use alternative software that respects my freedom.

Since we're talking about video, I think a better analogy would be using a VCR to record broadcasting, and there was certainly a legal battle over that too.

Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#78

Post by backtoyoujim »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #73
akira2501 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RIAA is alleging that youtube-dl is a copy protection circumvention tool "(3) As used in this subsection— (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a wo…

> Moreover, youtube is in no way connecting the "authority of the copyright owner" with the particular videos on it's site Of course it is. That's the whole point of the three strike system.

Why is there yet another legal framework with basis for legal jurisprudence being a rule from a child's game ?

Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#79

Post by userbinator »

schrodinger wrote: post #67
cookiengineer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube is using base64 "encryption" * and the reason the court decided in favor of youtube in the youtube-dl case was exactly this reason. The court thinks that base64 is a legitimate way to establish copyright protection online. Yeah, not kidding you. The lawyers are this stupid. Honestly I think the law is broken, because it is designed by people not capable of doing technological decisions, for technologically re…

I feel like it doesn’t make a difference how good the “encryption” is, it displays intent that you wouldn’t like your data downloaded. Just like an open door to your house vs a really easy to pick locked door makes a big difference.

IMHO it displays intent to require a browser that has JS, which yt-dl has sort of implemented.

Re: Downloading a video should be “fair use” as recording a song from the radio

#80

Post by jeroenhd »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #5

Considering that many countries take a copying fee -- which is intended to cover lost revenue from exactly this use case -- for cassettes, harddrives and other storage media, yes yes it should. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

It certainly solves the ethical debate, but sadly the data storage extortion is nothing more than a means to make you pay for your content multiple times.

I would support a political party that intends to change this, but I don't think any party I vote for actually cares about it.

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