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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

#731

Post by [deleted] »

gamblor956 wrote: post #656
stingraycharles wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add a data point, but back when I still was working for a video distribution startup, we offered our customers the ability to directly import their video inventory from YouTube. They were the owners of the videos, it was just a convenient (and very popular!) feature for them to let us handle this import. We used YouTube-dl for this, of course. No way we could have done this easily without it. We imported hund…

Right, but that's not the heart of the matter. It's one thing if a tool designed for legitimate archiving use results in incidental violation of copyright. It's another thing entirely, legally, if a tool is designed for violating copyright. In such case, it doesn't matter if there are also legitimate fair use uses of the tool. And that's what the README showed: that youtube-dl was built primarily to violate copyright…

[deleted]

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

#732

Post by dboreham »

young_unixer wrote: post #618
larrik wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that copyrighted works were included in the readme shows it was intended for that use, and the RIAA complaint will likely stand up to any legal scrutiny. Just because it can be used for legit purposes too won't matter in the slightest. I mean, Napster could have been used for legal means as well, and it got destroyed in court. The only chance tools like this have legally is when infringement is an "unintende…

It beats me why they'd use those videos as examples knowing how finicky copyright law is.

Lack of legal awareness / advice?

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

#733

Post by jimktrains2 »

saddlerustle wrote: post #651
jimktrains2 wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what is being circumvented? As far as I'm aware there are no controls put in place that are being circumvented. Edit: I'm also curious why the riaa would have standing at all? Even assuming there is some protection being circumvented, it's not the riaa's control that is being circumvented.

A german court ruled youtube's obfuscation of video request signatures is an effective technological protection measure. YoutubeIE._decrypt_signature in youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py bypasses this.

As a philosophical issue, since the youtube-dl code is running the cipher off of the code provided by youtube, just as my browser is, why is my browser not similarly circumventing this protection?

At least with CSS a key needed to be found by means separate from actually watching the DVD and wasn't shipped with the user in the same package as the video itself.

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

#734

Post by WORLD_ENDS_SOON »

stingraycharles wrote: post #283
larrik wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that copyrighted works were included in the readme shows it was intended for that use, and the RIAA complaint will likely stand up to any legal scrutiny. Just because it can be used for legit purposes too won't matter in the slightest. I mean, Napster could have been used for legal means as well, and it got destroyed in court. The only chance tools like this have legally is when infringement is an "unintende…

Just to add a data point, but back when I still was working for a video distribution startup, we offered our customers the ability to directly import their video inventory from YouTube. They were the owners of the videos, it was just a convenient (and very popular!) feature for them to let us handle this import. We used YouTube-dl for this, of course. No way we could have done this easily without it. We imported hund…

To add another item to the list of legal, legitimate uses of YouTube-dl: lots of public domain content is uploaded to YouTube, including a lot of media produced by the US government. For example, The White House has a YouTube channel, and my understanding of US law is that the vast majority of the content uploaded to that channel is public domain (produced by federal employees in the course of their job). Journalists or anyone else wanting to monitor the government would likely find YouTube-dl useful for archiving this public domain content from government channels.

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

#735

Post by saagarjha »

polote wrote: post #676
larrik wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that copyrighted works were included in the readme shows it was intended for that use, and the RIAA complaint will likely stand up to any legal scrutiny. Just because it can be used for legit purposes too won't matter in the slightest. I mean, Napster could have been used for legal means as well, and it got destroyed in court. The only chance tools like this have legally is when infringement is an "unintende…

> The fact that copyrighted works were included in the readme shows it was intended for that use How could that be true? if the YouTube link in the test case was a video of farmer on his truck would that show it is intended for that use? No. YouTube dl is made to download any YouTube videos it has not been made to download specifically Taylor Swift music videos, it just has just been picked as a test case as any othe…

It was however a very poor choice, given that they could have picked something better.

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

#736

Post by arvindamirtaa »

Reelin wrote: post #620
adkadskhj wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiously, what do scrapers (aka "readers") have to worry about with this topic? Eg, i'm making an archiver and reader combination that, for personal use, archives stuff in a Git-like store. Yet, Git (and Git-likes) can also be used to distribute.. so hypothetically i could use this software to scrape and distribute content. My intention is primarily to make news articles/etc searchable, archived, etc. Yet i'm sure N…

I think the recent LinkedIn case established that it is legal to scrape anything which is publicly available (ie no login required). Redistribution would be a copyright violation, but the scraping itself is legal. I'm not sure what that means for youtube-dl though.

The same argument can be made for video that's also publicly available.

Not to mention, youtube has it's own Download function in the mobile apps, even for copyrighted content. So there's that.

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

#737

Post by johnsonjo »

madeofpalk wrote: post #590
adrianmonk wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, does the fact that YouTube doesn't supply a download feature constitute a "technical protection measure"? From the RIAA's point of view, it works to their benefit that a download link doesn't exist, and it may be something they like, but that doesn't mean that's why. It could just as easily be that a download feature doesn't exist because YouTube wants you to keep returning to their site if you want to rewatch…

> It could just as easily be that a download feature doesn't exist because YouTube wants you to keep returning to their site if you want to rewatch a video. Lets be clear though - the only reason copyrighted material is allowed on Youtube is because the owners then grant a license for the content in exchange for ad revenue. Offering a download link severly damages the "owners are paid for their content" part of the e…

This is true and still applies in the case where you pay for YouTube Premium. Even if you use YouTube Premium you are also helping pay the content creators [1]

> # How YouTube Premium supports creators.

> Creators are the heart and soul of YouTube. To make sure they're compensated for their work, we share ad revenue with them when you watch ads on YouTube. If you're a YouTube Premium member, you won't see ads, so we share your monthly membership fee with creators. Best of all, the more videos you watch from your favorite creators, the more money they make.

So, to reply to the gp you technically aren’t just paying “evil” and “greedy” big corps, but your also helping all the YouTubers.

[1]: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7060016?hl=en

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

#738

Post by II2II »

larrik wrote: post #296
stingraycharles wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add a data point, but back when I still was working for a video distribution startup, we offered our customers the ability to directly import their video inventory from YouTube. They were the owners of the videos, it was just a convenient (and very popular!) feature for them to let us handle this import. We used YouTube-dl for this, of course. No way we could have done this easily without it. We imported hund…

Yes, which makes this very sad that a simple slip-up can make it very difficult to come back from this.

I would hardly call this a simple slip-up. It is known that the software could be used to infringe copyrights and other open source projects make it clear that they do not support copyright infringement even when it is clear that their software can be used to do so. (If I recall correctly, Kodi and Calibre are two examples.) Meanwhile, youtube-dl has a test for that specific use case.

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

#739

Post by arvindamirtaa »

Reelin wrote: post #646
Asooka wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, but youtube-dl doesn't break DRM. You can just get the video link from the dev tools panel when you open a youtube page. It doesn't let you download anything you wouldn't otherwise be able to.

Have you actually tried that lately? Particularly with a DASH stream? (Not that DASH itself is intended as DRM, but just that it's no longer anywhere near as simple as querying a single URL.)

Nonetheless, the underlying point holds. If youtube didn't want people downloading it's videos, it's trivial from them to close that up.
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