YouTube-dl's repository has been restored • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#81

Post by toyg » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

crumbshot wrote: post #15

envy2 wrote: post #3

Excellent. Looks like they've removed the tests for RIAA member videos as the only change, which I assume helped get this restored: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/1fb034d029c8b7...

And not even purged from the repo, it's still in the history if needed. Seems like the copyright holders making a big fuss over nothing really.

It's a shot across the bow, to achieve a chilling effect. They've achieved a few weeks of downtime, for now, and sent a message to the project that they're being watched. It might well not be the end of hostilities.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#82

Post by boomboomsubban » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

torstenvl wrote: post #56

Torkel wrote: post #18

The amount of publicity this generated for youtube-dl is astounding... I would love for this to be a ”the plan to get rid of youtube-dl backfired badly for RIAA” ending. But I guess RIAA is reviled enough already so nothing they do really matters. So I suppose the hope is that some political will to change the laws around this arises from it.

Honestly, this is what caused me to install it. Have downloaded one video so far - a U.S. government work, so no copyright.

If the RIAA notice is to be believed, you've still admitted to a crime as you've bypassed YouTube's DRM, which is their hosting of the video in other public links.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#83

Post by danaris » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #53

bigbubba wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if RIAA lawyers believe themselves productive members of society, or if they recognize themselves as the parasites they are.

This line of questioning on Startup News is quite amusing to me, I must say. How many of us can really pretend to make society a better place?

I mean, while it is the nominal purpose of the site, it's not like all of us here actually work in startups.

Personally, I do programming for psych research students & faculty at an undergrad institution.

It's not like working at a startup—or having money as your first, last, and only moral compass—is a prerequisite to post here.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#84

Post by siddharthgoel88 » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #63

siddharthgoel88 wrote: post #35

But now I guess Github should be used as a read-only redundancy rather than for development.

Why? GitHub didn't do anything wrong. They took this down because they were required to by law. It would have been the same story with anyone else.

What I meant is that they would rather do a self-hosting (Gitea, etc.) instead of using another platform to have ore control.

Moreover, my statement was more of a speculation rather than an advice :-D

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#85

Post by bigbubba » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #77

contravariant wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is neither here nor there but Nobel Prize winner Gerard 't Hooft has written an opinion piece on wrong-way drivers in science who seem convinced that everyone else is going the wrong way [1] (it's in Dutch unfortunately, but then the Dutch the word 'spookrider' (lit. 'ghostrider') is a lot cooler than 'wrong-way driver' IMHO). It's a concept that's somehow always stuck with me whenever I hear about people who se…

Yeah but sometimes it really is everyone else that is wrong. For example, when most people used to think the world was flat.

'Everybody' thinks RMS is wrong. He has the worst case of Cassandra's curse I've ever heard of.

But I think it tends to not work like this. Incidentally, the flat earth thing is mostly a myth; literate people have know the earth is round since the ancient Greeks figured it out. Columbus was ridiculed for thinking the Earth was smaller than it really is (his critics were right) and the only reason his trip didn't end badly for him is shear dumb luck in running into another continent in his quest to reach Asia the looooong way around.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#86

Post by jrochkind1 » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #14

boogies wrote: post #8

Great, now they can import the issues to a GitLab/Gitea instance hosted by the same Germans who refused to ever take down youtube-dl.org, and a few other places for redundancy, and not have to go through all this excess stress again.

I have trouble believing gitlab would just ignore a DMCA takedown request? This is what people believe? This is something gitlab has said? Actually, I guess I'm not sure of the consequences to a company of ignoring DMCA takedown requests (whether or not they are US companies; but Gitlab is now btw), but I assume they are not good, or why do companies bother complying? Rather than assume, I should look into it. But ye…

gitlab.com, btw, does clearly advertise that they comply with DMCA takedown notices.

https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/dmca/

Others in this sub-thread have identified that the downloadable releases are actually currently hosted on gitlab.com.

Gitlab has their internal workflow for handling DMCA takedown's public (as with most/all of their internal policies, which is cool!). https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/security/opera... It may be that they go a little bit slower with more chance for the alleged infringer to respond (with a counter-notice or voluntary takedown) than others.

But in the end, any major US company (or company doing business with the US) is probably going to comply with the DMCA, which says that if you get a takedown notice that is formatted correctly, you take down. Then there's a process with user filing a counter-notice, then the original filer having a chance to respond to THAT, etc., that you can see in the gitlab workflow, but most of that is just how DMCA works. "If there was a valid counter-notice and no response has been received from the plaintiff within 10 days of the counter-notice being forwarded" then the content might go back up.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#87

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:16 PM UTC

johannes1234321 wrote: post #43

bigbubba wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if RIAA lawyers believe themselves productive members of society, or if they recognize themselves as the parasites they are.

In their self view they ensure that artists earn money for their living, thus allow artists to survive. And there is some truth to it. Finding the right balance is hard ... but in my view they "rights holder industry" is too strong indeed.

"The Value of Everything" by Mariana Mazzucato. Great book. Central thesis: there are value creators and value extractors. Value creation is very connected with most people's idea of "progress". But value extraction is parasitic, and dominates more and more of contemporary economies.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#88

Post by boomboomsubban » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:16 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #14

boogies wrote: post #8

Great, now they can import the issues to a GitLab/Gitea instance hosted by the same Germans who refused to ever take down youtube-dl.org, and a few other places for redundancy, and not have to go through all this excess stress again.

I have trouble believing gitlab would just ignore a DMCA takedown request? This is what people believe? This is something gitlab has said? Actually, I guess I'm not sure of the consequences to a company of ignoring DMCA takedown requests (whether or not they are US companies; but Gitlab is now btw), but I assume they are not good, or why do companies bother complying? Rather than assume, I should look into it. But ye…

The youtube-dl removal was not a DMCA takedown request, under no situation could you consider the repo to be hosting copyright material.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#89

Post by cseberino » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:16 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #53

bigbubba wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if RIAA lawyers believe themselves productive members of society, or if they recognize themselves as the parasites they are.

This line of questioning on Startup News is quite amusing to me, I must say. How many of us can really pretend to make society a better place?

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.

Re: YouTube-dl's repository has been restored

#90

Post by toyg » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

gbl08ma wrote: post #9

dutchmartin wrote: post #6

So it seems that the dealbreaker was that one of tests that downloaded copyrighted material (see the last commit [1]). Seems like a reasonable thing to not do, and just replace those tests with just random cat videos. [1] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/1fb034d029c8b7...

It doesn't work like that since certain videos use obfuscation methods that random cat videos don't.

Since this affects only tests, they could easily change the relevant scripts to download a list of test videos at runtime. I bet the RIAA github-scrapers would not "see" it. Just serve statically a rot13-encoded list of URLs from pastebin or something, and Bob's your uncle.