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It may be my ignorance, but how would using youtube-dl be illegal? I can definitely see it being against ToS or some EULA, but IIRC those aren't legally enforc

It may be my ignorance, but how would using youtube-dl be illegal? I can definitely see it being against ToS or some EULA, but IIRC those aren't legally enforceable and would be a civil case, anyway (i.e. not an actual crime).

sp332 9y ago
I think it's unauthorized copying, which is copyright infringement. Infringement is usually a civil matter, but if it's done for profit or on "commercial scale" it can become criminal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Criminal_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Crimina... So I think individuals using youtube-dl wouldn't have to worry about it as much as the operators of the youtube-mp3 site would, just because of the difference in scale.
- hungerstrike 9y ago
  I don't know anything about law, but here is my simple thought on the matter: If your server responds to my request and gives a copy to me, how can I be doing anything illegal? There probably isn't a law which says that I have to use Chrome to access YouTube. IMO, youtube-dl is just another browser (albeit a very specialized one). Also, I wonder what would eventually happen if we started making specialized browsers that first send a "EULA"? It would say something like "By responding to this request, you agree that I am authorized to receive a copy of whatever you send to me..." I guess it would work for a while before big sites started blocking your requests, but there's nothing to say that each EULA has to be standardized or easy to recognize (kinda like how big sites bury the EULA/TOS in fine print).
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    The law isn't analogous to code and doesn't work that way. "But your honor, their server sent me the data! Clearly I was authorized!" won't fly in the real world. There's a pretty clear difference in intent from hitting the video page with a browser and hitting with a tool whose only purpose is to make a local copy. There's also the TOS: YouTube hereby grants you permission to access and use the Service as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that: You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Service or the Content without YouTube's prior written authorization, unless YouTube makes available the means for such distribution through functionality offered by the Service (such as the Embeddable Player). You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate.
    - hungerstrike 9y ago
      Thanks for your response. > "But your honor, their server sent me the data! Clearly I was authorized!" won't fly in the real world. I don't see why not. There is such a thing as an implied contract. What do you think would be the reason that it wouldn't fly? I mean if the TOS that nobody ever reads is good enough, why wouldn't authorization be implied when the server responds, regardless even of what the TOS says? Also the TOS seems a bit ambiguous, but my main defense against that would be to send my own TOS to the server on every request.
      - Karunamon 9y ago
        >What do you think would be the reason that it wouldn't fly? As I said: intent, which would definitely be scrutinized in a case where you're up in front of a judge. There's some interestingness in determining whether the ToS is actionable or not (and in some countries it isn't), but I find it really hard to argue legally or morally that Youtube can't mandate that you don't hit their service with a tool whose only purpose it is to copy videos. It's a bit more murky when dealing with a tool like youtube-dl which is a program you run on your own machine, but pretty cut and dry for a web service you're providing to others. >why wouldn't authorization be implied when the server responds, regardless even of what the TOS says? Also the TOS seems a bit ambiguous, but my main defense against that would be to send my own TOS to the server on every request. They're providing the service, you are not. If you don't like their service's requirements, you are free to not use it. The logical conclusion of this hypothetical world is that anyone sending the X-User-TOS header would simply be met with a 403. Most other companies would follow suit, since it's absurd for a service that serves millions of users daily to comply with the legal demands of all of them. Worse, nothing has been gained in this world. Just as YouTube is free to demand you use the website or not at all, they are free to reject clients who demand extra obligations. Their back yard, their rules at the end of the day.
      - kudokatz 9y ago
        > I don't see why not. There is such a thing as an implied contract. What do you think would be the reason that it wouldn't fly? IANAL. You cite a concept from contract law, but forget another: frustration of purpose. Saying there is an implied contract that you get access would frustrate the purpose of the original access contract.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    I think it's really the time to bring out the classic - "What Colour are your bits?"[0]. This, IMO, should be a required reading for anyone participating in the discussion on copyright. The crux of the issue is that law does not operate in the same reality computers (or, for that matter, physical reality) do. Unlike bits, it recognizes the cause-and-effect history of things, so e.g. one file can be illegal while other is perfectly fine, even if those files are bit-for-bit identical. -- [0] - http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23.
  - repiret 9y ago
    > If your server responds to my request and gives a copy to me, how can I be doing anything illegal? The snarky answer is that a sovereign state can make anything illegal that it chooses to. But we shouldn't allow anything a server responds to to be legal. After all, just because your server responds to my SQL injection attack doesn't mean it should be legal for me to steal your database.
- epicide 9y ago
  I definitely see how youtube-mp3 would be infringement since they are the ones actually sending you the bits over a wire. I have a hard time seeing how youtube-dl would even count as unauthorized copying. Not just in an "it's virtually unenforceable" sort of way, either. If it's unauthorized copying to use software on my computer to download and store copyrighted bits that I obtained directly from the authorized source (in this case YouTube), then Google would need to help go after themselves, since Chrome is doing the same thing (as youtube-dl). If I can create/use a CLI tool that (presumably) acts like a browser (youtube-dl) and you can't implement a way to prevent that, then that's your issue -- not mine. Legally, I'm probably wrong, though, since intent is usually way more important than what you actually do (e.g. porn vs nude art). EDIT: looks like others pretty much confirmed this thought process in the time it took me to write it.
  - sp332 9y ago
    In Europe at least, temporary web caches aren't infringing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Non-infringing_uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Non-inf... I think the US has similar law, but all I can find quickly is this ruling: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/27/google_cache_copyright_breach_ruling/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/27/google_cache_copyri...
  - bo1024 9y ago
    I agree. I can see how it is possible to for a tool like youtube-dl could violate a website's TOS, but not how it could violate copyright law.
- bo1024 9y ago
  > I think it's unauthorized copying, which is copyright infringement. I don't see how this argument would actually hold up for youtube-dl (whereas I do see how it would hold up for a third-party website like youtube-mp3). In youtube-dl, the process goes like this: 1. User connects to website, requests copy of video. 2. Website agrees and serves copy of video. 3. User makes private use of copy of video, e.g. saves it to disk. In this circumstance the user isn't doing any copying or distributing of copies, they're just making use of the copy they're given. It's exactly like recording a TV show playing over the air. (Note the difference to a website like youtube-mp3, in which there is a step where youtube-mp3 makes a copy of the data they received and distributes it to the user.)

sp332 9y ago

I think it's unauthorized copying, which is copyright infringement. Infringement is usually a civil matter, but if it's done for profit or on "commercial scale" it can become criminal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Criminal_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Crimina... So I think individuals using youtube-dl wouldn't have to worry about it as much as the operators of the youtube-mp3 site would, just because of the difference in scale.

hungerstrike 9y ago
I don't know anything about law, but here is my simple thought on the matter: If your server responds to my request and gives a copy to me, how can I be doing anything illegal? There probably isn't a law which says that I have to use Chrome to access YouTube. IMO, youtube-dl is just another browser (albeit a very specialized one). Also, I wonder what would eventually happen if we started making specialized browsers that first send a "EULA"? It would say something like "By responding to this request, you agree that I am authorized to receive a copy of whatever you send to me..." I guess it would work for a while before big sites started blocking your requests, but there's nothing to say that each EULA has to be standardized or easy to recognize (kinda like how big sites bury the EULA/TOS in fine print).
- Karunamon 9y ago
  The law isn't analogous to code and doesn't work that way. "But your honor, their server sent me the data! Clearly I was authorized!" won't fly in the real world. There's a pretty clear difference in intent from hitting the video page with a browser and hitting with a tool whose only purpose is to make a local copy. There's also the TOS: YouTube hereby grants you permission to access and use the Service as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that: You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Service or the Content without YouTube's prior written authorization, unless YouTube makes available the means for such distribution through functionality offered by the Service (such as the Embeddable Player). You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate.
  - hungerstrike 9y ago
    Thanks for your response. > "But your honor, their server sent me the data! Clearly I was authorized!" won't fly in the real world. I don't see why not. There is such a thing as an implied contract. What do you think would be the reason that it wouldn't fly? I mean if the TOS that nobody ever reads is good enough, why wouldn't authorization be implied when the server responds, regardless even of what the TOS says? Also the TOS seems a bit ambiguous, but my main defense against that would be to send my own TOS to the server on every request.
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      >What do you think would be the reason that it wouldn't fly? As I said: intent, which would definitely be scrutinized in a case where you're up in front of a judge. There's some interestingness in determining whether the ToS is actionable or not (and in some countries it isn't), but I find it really hard to argue legally or morally that Youtube can't mandate that you don't hit their service with a tool whose only purpose it is to copy videos. It's a bit more murky when dealing with a tool like youtube-dl which is a program you run on your own machine, but pretty cut and dry for a web service you're providing to others. >why wouldn't authorization be implied when the server responds, regardless even of what the TOS says? Also the TOS seems a bit ambiguous, but my main defense against that would be to send my own TOS to the server on every request. They're providing the service, you are not. If you don't like their service's requirements, you are free to not use it. The logical conclusion of this hypothetical world is that anyone sending the X-User-TOS header would simply be met with a 403. Most other companies would follow suit, since it's absurd for a service that serves millions of users daily to comply with the legal demands of all of them. Worse, nothing has been gained in this world. Just as YouTube is free to demand you use the website or not at all, they are free to reject clients who demand extra obligations. Their back yard, their rules at the end of the day.
    - kudokatz 9y ago
      > I don't see why not. There is such a thing as an implied contract. What do you think would be the reason that it wouldn't fly? IANAL. You cite a concept from contract law, but forget another: frustration of purpose. Saying there is an implied contract that you get access would frustrate the purpose of the original access contract.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  I think it's really the time to bring out the classic - "What Colour are your bits?"[0]. This, IMO, should be a required reading for anyone participating in the discussion on copyright. The crux of the issue is that law does not operate in the same reality computers (or, for that matter, physical reality) do. Unlike bits, it recognizes the cause-and-effect history of things, so e.g. one file can be illegal while other is perfectly fine, even if those files are bit-for-bit identical. -- [0] - http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23.
- repiret 9y ago
  > If your server responds to my request and gives a copy to me, how can I be doing anything illegal? The snarky answer is that a sovereign state can make anything illegal that it chooses to. But we shouldn't allow anything a server responds to to be legal. After all, just because your server responds to my SQL injection attack doesn't mean it should be legal for me to steal your database.
epicide 9y ago
I definitely see how youtube-mp3 would be infringement since they are the ones actually sending you the bits over a wire. I have a hard time seeing how youtube-dl would even count as unauthorized copying. Not just in an "it's virtually unenforceable" sort of way, either. If it's unauthorized copying to use software on my computer to download and store copyrighted bits that I obtained directly from the authorized source (in this case YouTube), then Google would need to help go after themselves, since Chrome is doing the same thing (as youtube-dl). If I can create/use a CLI tool that (presumably) acts like a browser (youtube-dl) and you can't implement a way to prevent that, then that's your issue -- not mine. Legally, I'm probably wrong, though, since intent is usually way more important than what you actually do (e.g. porn vs nude art). EDIT: looks like others pretty much confirmed this thought process in the time it took me to write it.
- sp332 9y ago
  In Europe at least, temporary web caches aren't infringing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Non-infringing_uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Non-inf... I think the US has similar law, but all I can find quickly is this ruling: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/27/google_cache_copyright_breach_ruling/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/27/google_cache_copyri...
- bo1024 9y ago
  I agree. I can see how it is possible to for a tool like youtube-dl could violate a website's TOS, but not how it could violate copyright law.
bo1024 9y ago
> I think it's unauthorized copying, which is copyright infringement. I don't see how this argument would actually hold up for youtube-dl (whereas I do see how it would hold up for a third-party website like youtube-mp3). In youtube-dl, the process goes like this: 1. User connects to website, requests copy of video. 2. Website agrees and serves copy of video. 3. User makes private use of copy of video, e.g. saves it to disk. In this circumstance the user isn't doing any copying or distributing of copies, they're just making use of the copy they're given. It's exactly like recording a TV show playing over the air. (Note the difference to a website like youtube-mp3, in which there is a step where youtube-mp3 makes a copy of the data they received and distributes it to the user.)