I'd think the RIAA and Google are well acquainted with the Streisand effect by now... I'm just hoping the takedown will prompt a whole bunch of people to contribute to youtube-dl out of spite, as I know it had been lagging behind due to simply not having enough contributors. I'd even go ahead and throw down the glove.
YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
961–970 of 1001 posts
Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
#962I used YouTube-dl to watch videos, not to download and store them.
Are user-agents illegal now?
Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
#963This takes me right back to those heady days of DeCSS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
#964If you still have youtube-dl on your system (at least the version distributed on homebrew) your youtube-dl file is compressed. You can get the full source code by chopping the shebang line off the top and unzipping the file.
Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
#965It is a bit of a tough question. How would I feel about someone borrowing a book from a library and then photocopying it to keep a local copy? If the intent was to re-distribute then I would not feel comfortable allowing it. However, if the proposed remedy was to ban personal ownership of photocopiers I would not even consider that a valid approach. But would I expect I could keep my own photocopied version instead o…
> It is a bit of a tough question. How would I feel about someone borrowing a book from a library and then photocopying it to keep a local copy?
If you're photocopying a library book in order to avoid buying your own copy, I don't feel great about that—we need to support authors. Yes, everyone's financial situation is different, and not every under-the-table photocopy is a lost sale, but there has to be some incentive to actually go to the bookstore.
But here’s the thing—for 99% of Youtube videos, there is no bookstore. There is no other way for me to acquire an unencumbered video file, regardless of how much I'm willing to pay.
And to stretch the photocopy analogy a bit, there are a lot of other reasons someone may want to photocopy a book:
• If the book has small print, you may want to enlarge the text.
• If you prefer listening over reading, you may want to OCR the pages and use text-to-speech.
• If you're doing research, you may want to OCR the pages so the text can be digitally indexed and searched.
• If you have an eReader, you may want to digitize the book so you don't have to carry around a paper copy.
And, sure, in some cases it may be possible to buy an official audiobook, or an eBook, or a large print edition. But in other cases, that might not be an option.
Downloading a Youtube video affords similar freedoms, allowing you to experience the content in the way that makes sense for you.
Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
#966Earlier 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…
not to mention its a console cmd and works well in scripts. i used it for a lot of sites that have their videos free but i used a console browser and used this in a script that i could call through the browser. i never looked at how it worked or what i could do with it in a non legitimate way but i wonder if i did unintentionally. i wonder if its the download part that is the issue though for some sites can have free to watch but might have issue with downloading funnily enough screen recording does exist.
Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
#967Earlier 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…
The fact that youtube wants people to come back to the site and use servers, miles of wires, electricity, network machinery instead of letting them download videos so they can watch them from thumbdrive just says to me this company is unethical and harms environment. Any business model that forces people to be on the network without any reason other than greed, should be illegal. If you can stream the file, download…
All businesses run on financial incentives (or what you call 'greed'). How is it possible that profit motive and associated laws that facilitate buying/selling be written off as unethical?
Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
#968Note that RIAA is making this takedown because the software CAN be used to download copyrighted music and videos, and it uses examples in the ~~README~~(unit tests, see correction[1]) as an example of that: > We also note that the source code prominently includes as sample uses of the source code the downloading of copies of our members’ copyrighted sound recordings and music videos, as noted in Exhibit A hereto. For…
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
Just because copyrighted works are on youtube and are seen as an example of youtube content does not mean the software was built with the express intent to violate copyright. That just doesn't follow.
Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
#969I'm very scared by this. youtube-dl needs somewhat frequent updates as Google moves the youtube codebase around. I'm worried that the RIAA's next move, now that it's starting to get inconvenient to get youtube-dl, will be to make Youtube change in some way to make existing copies of youtube-dl no longer work. youtube-dl has been my primary way of getting videos since I learned about it. If the RIAA manages to kill it…
To restore your ability to partake in culture, you can use JDownloader. It is universal and can download from almost any media site.
jdownloader.org or .com? The former throws a FILE_NOT_FOUND exception for the Windows version and can't access the SVN, the latter looks a bit sketchy and has no code available, not that it's a prerequisite, just figured HNers would offer up the open-source version first ;)
Re: YouTube-dl has received a DMCA takedown from RIAA
#970Counter sue for a bunch of money for wasting your time.