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I think you are misunderstanding the legal argument. The DMCA Section 1201 specifically prohibits (among other things) technology that "is marketed ... for use
by eli 6y ago
I think you are misunderstanding the legal argument. The DMCA Section 1201 specifically prohibits (among other things) technology that "is marketed ... for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." The example in the README is evidence of this.
The argument is that youtube-dl is primarily used for breaking DRM not just that it could be used for doing so.
- red_admiral 6y agoCalling the thing youtube-dl in the first place rather than GenericDownloadHelper or something like that could, I guess, be seen as marketing it for a specific purpose.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoSadly yes. Legally this was actually rather stupid. Giving the project an innocuous name - think of a cute animal that isn't already being used as an open source mascot - and not explicitly mentioning popular artists in the README would have made the RIAA's case harder to argue. As it stands now, whatever the ethics or politics, legally there isn't much of a defence.
- dylan604 6y agoso, let's fork it and call it something like FURIAA
- mulmen 6y agoYeah I'm sure the RIAA won't notice their name hidden in there and argue the tool is designed to obtain their content.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoToo late; the code is already tainted. It carries the colour of "intended, marketed and used for copyright violation", and you can't just wash it away by reuploading the repo under a different name.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoWhy not? If youtube-dl incorporates some generic HTTP library (which it presumably does), is that now "tainted" too? If it used the one from Chrome, does everybody have to stop using Chrome? That seems problematic. Also, if that's the case I foresee some epic trolling ahead as people incorporate "interesting" code into their overt piracy tools. I bet some of them even incorporate code built into Windows or macOS. If not, what stops somebody from taking all of youtube-dl, changing the name and three lines of code, and saying that the removed lines were the ones promoted for infringement?
- saagarjha 6y agoThe law isn't some computer program that you can trick if you try hard enough. If someone can reasonably tell that you just took a program and rejiggled it a bit to pretend it's something else, they are going to come after you regardless and likely be successful when they do so.
- Aeolun 6y agoSo lets have someone outside the influence of the RIAA do so? Not everyone lives under their thumb.
- pmoriarty 6y ago"The law isn't some computer program that you can trick if you try hard enough." I don't know what you're talking about. It happens all the time. Miscarriages of justice are common. As just one of endless examples, read about how much of forensic science is a joke, yet it passes muster in the courts.
- saagarjha 6y agoGenerally to do that you have to be willing to aggressively pursue your position and be somewhat ok with being unethical, which I doubt will be youtube-dl's position.
- 6y ago
- eli 6y agoAgreed, though the RIAA may well have sent a letter anyway. There's not really any downside to them sending a takedown that is overly broad.
- lettergram 6y agoNo reason it can’t be hosted elsewhere with that name after a fork.
- ehsankia 6y agoIt definitely was very sloppy of them to show examples on actual copyrighted material. Couldn't they have simply put examples of public domain content?
- jchw 6y agoJFYI i was wrong. There were no such examples in the README or “marketing material,” there was URLs and metadata in a few unit tests.
- ehsankia 6y agoNot that big of a difference, since I see unit tests as examples, still sloppy either ways.
- MAGZine 6y agoIt's not "marketing," though, which is a key difference. Programmers put weird things in unit tests all the time. Maybe the contributor was making a joke.
- ehsankia 6y agoIt doesn't have to be marketing. You're showing by example how your app can be used, and one of your examples is to download copyrighted content.
- 1024core 6y agoIt would be interesting to see _who_ added this unit test. I wouldn't be surprised if it was some RIAA lackey.
- ldarby 6y agoThat's quite a paranoid conspiracy theory you have there. The first mention of one of the urls (Icona Pop) in the git log is this: commit f7ab6cbe160afbba60537c7a830a4c65c6f0b3ea Author: Filippo Valsorda <filippo.valsorda [at] gmail.com> Date: Tue Jun 25 14:38:00 2013 +0200 add tests for use_cipher_signature videos (#897) and the ability to test multiple videos per IE diff --git a/test/test_download.py b/test/test_download.py index 9af626dca..067bde4bb 100644 --- a/test/test_download.py +++ b/test/test_download.py @@ -153,9 +153,11 @@ def generator(test_case): return test_template ### And add them to TestDownload -for test_case in defs: +for n, test_case in enumerate(defs): test_method = generator(test_case) test_method.__name__ = "test_{0}".format(test_case["name"]) + if getattr(TestDownload, test_method.__name__, False): + test_method.__name__ = "test_{0}_{1}".format(test_case["name"], n) setattr(TestDownload, test_method.__name__, test_method) del test_method diff --git a/test/tests.json b/test/tests.json index fd037d818..f6a70f153 100644 --- a/test/tests.json +++ b/test/tests.json @@ -11,6 +11,32 @@ "description": "test chars: \"'/\\ä�<86>��<9D><95><90>\n\nThis is a test video for youtube-dl.\n\nFor more information, contact phihag@phihag.de ." } }, + { + "name": "Youtube", + "url": "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ltcDfZMA3U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ltcDfZMA3U", + "file": "1ltcDfZMA3U.flv", + "note": "Test VEVO video (#897)", + "info_dict": { + "upload_date": "20070518", + "title": "Maps - It Will Find You", + "description": "Music video by Maps performing It Will Find You.", + "uploader": "MuteUSA", + "uploader_id": "MuteUSA" + } + }, + { + "name": "Youtube", + "url": "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxxajLWwzqY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxxajLWwzqY", + "file": "UxxajLWwzqY.mp4", + "note": "Test generic use_cipher_signature video (#897)", + "info_dict": { + "upload_date": "20120506", + "title": "Icona Pop - I Love It (feat. Charli XCX) [OFFICIAL VIDEO]", + "description": "md5:b085c9804f5ab69f4adea963a2dceb3c", + "uploader": "IconaPop", + "uploader_id": "IconaPop" + } + }, { "name": "Dailymotion", "md5": "392c4b85a60a90dc4792da41ce3144eb",
- nullc 6y ago> The example in the README is evidence of this. it wasn't in the readme, it was in the test suite. I don't think it would be difficult to argue that downloading the world for the sole purpose of making sure the downloading worked was not an infringement (or, alternatively, was fair use).
- doomjunky 6y agoI'm in no favour for the RIAA but just imagine. It would be a 300IQ move if that specific pull request was engineered by RIAA themself. Please pull that test case... Fooled! Now there is a legal reason. Here is the DCMA takedown notice.
- jimktrains2 6y agoBut 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.
- eli 6y agoSaving videos
- thesimon 6y agoAlthough the OS might do that as well when you watch a video and put the computer into hibernation mode.
- jimktrains2 6y agoYoutube-dl doesn't do anything your browser doesn't do already do when accessing said video. Also, I asked what is being circumvented, not what the tool does.
- can16358p 6y agoIt boils down to the intention. The intention is to download videos to your computer (as viewable mp4 files for end users) which isn't legal, as they are intended to be streamed (or possibly removed in the future) with ads, stats, analytics, recommended etc. I definitely don't defend this and I know that this whole copyright and DRM thing is fundamentally flawed by design, but it unfortunately works this way legally.
- jimktrains2 6y agoIf it boils down to user intention then you can't also argue the tool is circumventing anything. Either mimicking a browser and working the way google expects any client not written or authorized by them, such as a web browser, to is ok or it's not.
- 6y ago
- Asooka 6y agoHm, 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.
- Reelin 6y agoHave 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.)
- arvindamirtaa 6y agoNonetheless, the underlying point holds. If youtube didn't want people downloading it's videos, it's trivial from them to close that up.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoIt isn't trivial for them to break platforms that won't get new YouTube apps.
- Mindwipe 6y agoYouTube have only been permitting YouTube apps on platforms that support Widevine DLM for a long time now. I suspect they are just waiting for the percentage of older clients in use to fall a little bit further, but the plan is pretty clear.
- ric2b 6y agoI keep refusing to enable DRM on Firefox. Hopefully there are enough people like me to matter.
- corobo 6y agoThey did do that. That's why youtube-dl exists..
- jhanschoo 6y agoThis makes me wonder: if I fork the project into another product without such marketing it in this manner, and BFG away all troublesome uses (e.g. in the tests) the git history, it would then be legal, yes?
- garmaine 6y agoExcept it’s not in the README, it’s in an obscure unit test. That’s not marketing.
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoWhat did the readme say that has no legitimate use? Because even downloading Disney can be legitimate. LockPickingLawyer teaches you how to do things that could be torts, but there are circumstances where those same actions are entirely legitimate. Tort generally needs the context to show that something is not legitimate; so the same applies here. AIUI copyright is not a situation of strict liability.
- kmlx 6y agoisn’t DMCA a US law? so why not move youtube-dl outside the US github to a country that doesn’t have DMCA/copyright?
- iso1210 6y agoThe US decided their laws, specifically the DMCA, applied globally back in 2001 [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd.