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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

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. EDIT: based on other comments, it turns out the offending evidence was in the unit testing code not the README file, which legally makes it a bit worse than if it had just been in the README file.

maxander 6y ago
The kicker is that if their demo examples had been something like that, or e.g. students downloading copies of free lectures, or etc, the RIAA would have much less of a case. No actual code would have had to change. If you have a tool which skirts (bad, overreaching, probably constitutionally invalid) laws, be smart about how you present them!
- yebyen 6y ago
  If this content is freely available, why can't we take a fair use copy? That is not a violation of copyright. (Even if it is entertainment / not educational.) Those are the terms of the deal, we made when we enshrined copyright into law. If you can show it to me, then I am allowed to take a copy. (Is it not? I thought that DMCA law itself was written to skirt around this fact of law.)
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    If this content is freely available, why can't we take a fair use copy? That is not a violation of copyright. Making a copy on its own is not fair use. What matters is the reason for making the copy. If you are making an connectivity-shifted copy (aka, for viewing away from internet access) there could be a fair use argument to download content from a streaming site that is not otherwise available for offline consumption. But the flipside of that: if there is a way to access the content in a way that fair use is not implicated (i.e., because the copyright owner makes the content available for that use case such as offline viewing, even if payment is required), then generally fair use does not apply. Remember: fair use is a defense to violating copyright, and it must be reasonable under the circumstances. Not wanting to pay for a license for your intended use case is generally never considered reasonable. If you can show it to me, then I am allowed to take a copy. That has never been the law, at any point in the history of copyright, dating back to before copying works was trivial.
    - yebyen 6y ago
      In Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. the majority opinion stated: > [There must be] a balance between a copyright holder's legitimate demand for effective - not merely symbolic - protection of the statutory monopoly, and the rights of others freely to engage in substantially unrelated areas of commerce. Accordingly, the sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Is there a subsequent opinion that reversed that? (How is youtube-dl substantially different from a VCR recording, if youtube is substantially similar to a broadcast medium?) > [W]hen one considers the nature of a televised copyrighted audiovisual work ... and that time-shifting merely enables a viewer to see such a work which he had been invited to witness in its entirety free of charge, the fact ... that the entire work is reproduced ... does not have its ordinary effect of militating against a finding of fair use.
      - eightails 6y ago
        To play devil's advocate, I wonder if it can really be said that when you watch a youtube video you have been > invited to witness in its entirety free of charge when you consider advertising. It could be argued that when you watch a monetized youtube video you are being invited to view the video in exchange for also viewing advertisements as a form of payment. I hope that you're right though, and that we get a ruling in favour of being able to make copies for fair-use.
        justinclift 6y ago
        > It could be argued that when you watch a monetized youtube video ... Not sure what one of those looks like. I hear people talk about them, but I've not seem an advert on a YouTube video. That being said, I do use a bunch of anti-ad browser extensions... :)
        yebyen 6y ago
        For sure, that is the argument they will have to make! As a counter-argument, what if I paid for my youtube premium membership though, to avoid the advertising, and really what I want to do is to location-shift within the bounds of the law, I want to take my laptop into the wilderness and watch the movies I paid for, on an Indian reservation in front of a mountain scene, ... where there is no broadband or cell radio tower service? (Hypothetically of course! Youtube-dl is not only for Youtube.)
  - larrymcp 6y ago
    Why can't we take a fair use copy? That is not a violation of copyright. That's not covered under "Fair Use": see [1] for fair-use criteria. It is definitely a violation of copyright, yea. [1] http://fairusetube.org/guide-to-youtube-removals/3-deciding-if-video-is-fair-use http://fairusetube.org/guide-to-youtube-removals/3-deciding-...
    - yebyen 6y ago
      Taking a copy does not affect the potential market of the copyrighted work in any way. Sharing a copy is another matter. Youtube-dl facilitates taking a copy only, it is not a tool for sharing. This case is substantially different than Napster, I disagree. In some circumstances, you must be able to take a copy in order to exercise your allowed "transformative" fair use rights. You cannot sample a record without a way to take a copy.
    - TheCoelacanth 6y ago
      The article you cited is about fair use when distributing a video. It does not address making a copy for personal use.
x0x0 6y ago
why does that make it worse?
- yebyen 6y ago
  I don't think it does. Just because there are copyrighted works in the test cases, doesn't mean they are willfully in violation of copyright. If I am granted a license by Youtube to view this material, then is it not also fair use if I take a copy for later review, or otherwise maintaining the fair use rights innately afforded to me by copyright? What other facilities could I use to exercise my fair use rights in this case, besides tools like youtube-dl? If the video is already available freely for viewing (with advertising), are there any greater damages that aggrieved parties could calculate than the loss of advertising revenue from my repeated viewing of that file? What incentive is there for me to share this file in violation of copyright if anyone can download a fair use copy for themselves, with the tools provided by youtube-dl?
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    It makes it worse because otherwise they could have argued that the README was separate from the development of the tool itself, so the tool itself wasn't intended for violating copyright. By putting the infringing act into the code of the tool itself, they lose the ability to make that argument, and moreover show that the tool was built to infringe copyrights, because clearly they thought it was important enough to be able to infringe copyrights that they created multiple unit tests for it. are there any greater damages that aggrieved parties could calculate than the loss of advertising revenue from my repeated viewing of that file? The loss of advertising revenue is largely irrelevant unless the RIAA chooses to demonstrate the amount. Copyright law provides statutory damages starting at $750, and for that they just need to show a single infringing act (and for each additional act they prove, they get another $750). What incentive is there for me to share this file in violation of copyright if anyone can download a fair use copy for themselves, with the tools provided by youtube-dl? You're assuming a fair use case for using youtube-dl to download a copy of a licensed music video. But fair use is defense to a claim of violating copyright, so you need to show why your use is a fair use, you can't just say "fair use" as if it were a magic spell that makes your legal problems go away. And generally, it would be difficult to prove fair use for any of the content covered by an RIAA license because they make that content available for use offline, time-shifted, etc...they simply require that you pay for that.
michaelmrose 6y ago
>it doesn't matter if there are also legitimate fair use uses of the tool. What are you basing your legal theory on?
- gamblor956 6y ago
  The text of the DMCA and cases based on it. Once the infringing use has been established, it doesn't matter that there is also the potential for legitimate fair use. If it did, then Napster, Kazaa, and Limewire would still be around because they all had the potential for legitimate fair use.
  - sl1ck731 6y ago
    Not having read any legal literature around or really understanding the DMCA, how can they not make a distinction between things with legitimate uses and not? How do torrent clients stand up to that?
    - mulmen 6y ago
      Torrent clients don’t name themselves “Game of Torrents” and have test cases for downloading TV shows. The problem YouTube-dl ran into is they literally named themselves after a prominent streaming site that is copyright holder friendly and also literally tested, in their codebase, the ability to do a thing that arguably violates the DMCA.
      - robertlagrant 6y ago
        Not sure the "literally" things are anything to do with this. Only the "arguably violates DMCA" is relevant, and we already knew it was arguable.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        mulmen 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
iTunes was designed [in part, probably a principal part of the original design] for CD ripping, I gather (I haven't personally used it more than twice, many years ago). Format shifting was at the time not allowed in UK copyright law, and again is not allowed as of a couple of years ago (it was only allowed for about a year). iTunes was designed for copyright violation. I'm sure the manual will show that. Just for comparison. It's my understanding that any media _can_ fall under Fair Use in the USA, meaning that there would have to be specification as to who was using the software and their circumstances within the unit tests in order to make it infringing use. You might fir example be archiving, or preparing educational materials, or compiling a review, or doing subtitling. It's not sufficient to prove someone downloaded, you have to show it was infringing activity. How do you do that with a unit test? Software to perform legitimate, legal downloads would still have to do that same test. In short you've found a smoking gun, now prove its principle purpose is murder. This comment is provided solely for entertainment and in no way relates to my employment.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Tunes was designed [in part, probably a principal part of the original design] for CD ripping, I gather (I haven't personally used it more than twice, many years ago).... iTunes was designed for copyright violation. I'm sure the manual will show that. No, Itunes was designed for organizing music. How you got that music was a separate function,and you could split out the CD ripping functionality and still have the primary function of iTunes. Additionally, making copies of physical media for personal archival purposes is recognized as a legitimate fair use (and was back then), so the the CD ripping functionality would have generally still have been okay. And yes, there is case law on when ripping CDs is considered fair use and when it is not. It's my understanding that any media _can_ fall under Fair Use in the USA, meaning that there would have to be specification as to who was using the software and their circumstances within the unit tests in order to make it infringing use. You might fir example be archiving, or preparing educational materials, or compiling a review, or doing subtitling. Yes, any media can be subject to a fair use defense. The second statement is not relevant to the copyright analysis. The last statement are examples of fair use, but note that acquiring the content for the purposes of preparing educational materials is not automatically "fair use". For example, preparing educational materials for a class provided at a for-profit institution, or in educational materials sold commercially, would not support a fair use defense, though otherwise the use of copyright content in educational materials has generally been deemed fair use. It's not sufficient to prove someone downloaded, you have to show it was infringing activity. How do you do that with a unit test? Software to perform legitimate, legal downloads would still have to do that same test. The unit-test is a part of a different analysis from a basic copyright infringement claim; That question is whether the tool is intended for violating copyright and for that, they don't need to show any infringing activity actually took place, only that the tool was intended for infringing activity. The DMCA does not require a creator to suffer harm before they sue, since it recognizes that in the computer age, once such harm occurs it may not be possible to put the genie back in the bottle.
hajile 6y ago
A unit test seems like fair use. I don't know where tranformation would land as they are just streaming data and not actually viewing it. It's (potentially) the whole content, but a case that was literally just uploading an entire video as-is with a different title was ruled fair use not too long ago, so this isn't itself damning. The nature of the work seems irrelevant here as it's not viewed. It could easily be replaced with any other video -- even one owned by the repo creators. Likewise, since they are unit testing rather than viewing the content, I doubt there is any commercial harm and the market overlap between video viewers and unit testers is zero.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  No, the unit test isn't fair use, because it wasn't necessary to violate the license holder's copyrights in order to test the code. It's (potentially) the whole content, but a case that was literally just uploading an entire video as-is with a different title was ruled fair use not too long ago, so this isn't itself damning. I'd like to see a cite for that. Generally, uploading whole content owned by someone else is not fair use absent something like the content being newsworthy in itself (such as video of a police beating). Otherwise, fair use would generally require some transformative effort. Likewise, since they are unit testing rather than viewing the content, I doubt there is any commercial harm and the market overlap between video viewers and unit testers is zero. Copyright violations don't require the copyright holder to prove commercial harm. That's the entire point of statutory damages.
  - hajile 6y ago
    "Not necessary" doesn't mean it's not still fair use. Lots of things aren't necessary but one definition or another. The argument here is that it's lack of necessity makes it incidental. Here's the Carl Benjamin case covered in bloomberg (you can look up the specific case if you'd like) https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/youtuber-wins-attorneys-fees-in-clinton-party-copyright-case https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/youtuber-wins-attorneys... > Copyright violations don't require the copyright holder to prove commercial harm. That's the entire point of statutory damages. This is explicitly one of the four points of fair use as stated by the US government, so it's very important. https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html
axiolite 6y ago
Downloading a Youtube video with youtube-dl IS NOT violating copyright in the USA. Downloading videos may violate Youtube's TOS, but that's civil/contract law and not criminal and so the DMCA can't be used to enforce such TOS violations. A person might share a video they don't own the copyright to, after downloading it from youtube with youtube-dl, but youtube-dl has no functionality in it to do such illegal sharing. It only has the time-shift functionality. The only tenuous leg the RIAA has to stand on is claiming that allowing only streaming of content constitutes some form of digital rights management code, and by reverse engineering it, without imposing the same restrictions as Youtube's website and apps, do, maybe that's some form of circumvention which will be found not entirely legal. They had to cite a German legal ruling which found YouTube’s “rolling cipher” was an anti-circumvention device. But German court rulings have no bearing on US law, and Germany doesn't have a DMCA statute, so it is a specious claim, and the RIAA is just hoping an open source project won't be able to fund a legal defense. It's Betamax time-shifting plus macrovision/video stabilizers all over again.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Downloading a Youtube video with youtube-dl IS NOT violating copyright in the USA. Downloading videos may violate Youtube's TOS, but that's civil/contract law and not criminal and so the DMCA can't be used to enforce such TOS violations. Downloading a Youtube video is making a copy. Whether it is a copyright violation depends on whether Youtube's license includes letting visitors make permanent copies, as this is considered a separate type of license. The TOS has nothing to do with it. A person might share a video they don't own the copyright to, after downloading it from youtube with youtube-dl, but youtube-dl has no functionality in it to do such illegal sharing. It only has the time-shift functionality. This is false. Also, time-shifting is not a a valid fair-use defense for material available on-demand, because the justification for time-shifting (as in the Betamax case) generally no longer exists. There are other fair use arguments that could be made, but time-shifting isn't one of them. They had to cite a German legal ruling which found YouTube’s “rolling cipher” was an anti-circumvention device. But German court rulings have no bearing on US law, and Germany doesn't have a DMCA statute, so it is a specious claim, and the RIAA is just hoping an open source project won't be able to fund a legal defense. I don't know if you're joking or not, but they cited a variety of US cases. Kazaa, Limewire, Napster, etc, are all US cases that all came down the same way: a tool intended primarily for copyright violations violates the DMCA, and in certain cases can even expose its developers to statutory damages under the copyright code. It's Betamax time-shifting plus macrovision/video stabilizers all over again. Nope, not even close for so many reasons already explained in this and other comments.
tripzilch 6y ago
> And that's what the README showed: that youtube-dl was built primarily to violate copyright. That's not what "primarily" means.
theelous3 6y ago
edit: I misread.
scoot_718 6y ago
Sounds like Google are the ones infringing, not youtube-dl.

maxander 6y ago

The kicker is that if their demo examples had been something like that, or e.g. students downloading copies of free lectures, or etc, the RIAA would have much less of a case. No actual code would have had to change. If you have a tool which skirts (bad, overreaching, probably constitutionally invalid) laws, be smart about how you present them!

yebyen 6y ago
If this content is freely available, why can't we take a fair use copy? That is not a violation of copyright. (Even if it is entertainment / not educational.) Those are the terms of the deal, we made when we enshrined copyright into law. If you can show it to me, then I am allowed to take a copy. (Is it not? I thought that DMCA law itself was written to skirt around this fact of law.)
- gamblor956 6y ago
  If this content is freely available, why can't we take a fair use copy? That is not a violation of copyright. Making a copy on its own is not fair use. What matters is the reason for making the copy. If you are making an connectivity-shifted copy (aka, for viewing away from internet access) there could be a fair use argument to download content from a streaming site that is not otherwise available for offline consumption. But the flipside of that: if there is a way to access the content in a way that fair use is not implicated (i.e., because the copyright owner makes the content available for that use case such as offline viewing, even if payment is required), then generally fair use does not apply. Remember: fair use is a defense to violating copyright, and it must be reasonable under the circumstances. Not wanting to pay for a license for your intended use case is generally never considered reasonable. If you can show it to me, then I am allowed to take a copy. That has never been the law, at any point in the history of copyright, dating back to before copying works was trivial.
  - yebyen 6y ago
    In Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. the majority opinion stated: > [There must be] a balance between a copyright holder's legitimate demand for effective - not merely symbolic - protection of the statutory monopoly, and the rights of others freely to engage in substantially unrelated areas of commerce. Accordingly, the sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Is there a subsequent opinion that reversed that? (How is youtube-dl substantially different from a VCR recording, if youtube is substantially similar to a broadcast medium?) > [W]hen one considers the nature of a televised copyrighted audiovisual work ... and that time-shifting merely enables a viewer to see such a work which he had been invited to witness in its entirety free of charge, the fact ... that the entire work is reproduced ... does not have its ordinary effect of militating against a finding of fair use.
    - eightails 6y ago
      To play devil's advocate, I wonder if it can really be said that when you watch a youtube video you have been > invited to witness in its entirety free of charge when you consider advertising. It could be argued that when you watch a monetized youtube video you are being invited to view the video in exchange for also viewing advertisements as a form of payment. I hope that you're right though, and that we get a ruling in favour of being able to make copies for fair-use.
      - justinclift 6y ago
        > It could be argued that when you watch a monetized youtube video ... Not sure what one of those looks like. I hear people talk about them, but I've not seem an advert on a YouTube video. That being said, I do use a bunch of anti-ad browser extensions... :)
      - yebyen 6y ago
        For sure, that is the argument they will have to make! As a counter-argument, what if I paid for my youtube premium membership though, to avoid the advertising, and really what I want to do is to location-shift within the bounds of the law, I want to take my laptop into the wilderness and watch the movies I paid for, on an Indian reservation in front of a mountain scene, ... where there is no broadband or cell radio tower service? (Hypothetically of course! Youtube-dl is not only for Youtube.)
- larrymcp 6y ago
  Why can't we take a fair use copy? That is not a violation of copyright. That's not covered under "Fair Use": see [1] for fair-use criteria. It is definitely a violation of copyright, yea. [1] http://fairusetube.org/guide-to-youtube-removals/3-deciding-if-video-is-fair-use http://fairusetube.org/guide-to-youtube-removals/3-deciding-...
  - yebyen 6y ago
    Taking a copy does not affect the potential market of the copyrighted work in any way. Sharing a copy is another matter. Youtube-dl facilitates taking a copy only, it is not a tool for sharing. This case is substantially different than Napster, I disagree. In some circumstances, you must be able to take a copy in order to exercise your allowed "transformative" fair use rights. You cannot sample a record without a way to take a copy.
  - TheCoelacanth 6y ago
    The article you cited is about fair use when distributing a video. It does not address making a copy for personal use.

x0x0 6y ago

why does that make it worse?

yebyen 6y ago
I don't think it does. Just because there are copyrighted works in the test cases, doesn't mean they are willfully in violation of copyright. If I am granted a license by Youtube to view this material, then is it not also fair use if I take a copy for later review, or otherwise maintaining the fair use rights innately afforded to me by copyright? What other facilities could I use to exercise my fair use rights in this case, besides tools like youtube-dl? If the video is already available freely for viewing (with advertising), are there any greater damages that aggrieved parties could calculate than the loss of advertising revenue from my repeated viewing of that file? What incentive is there for me to share this file in violation of copyright if anyone can download a fair use copy for themselves, with the tools provided by youtube-dl?
- gamblor956 6y ago
  It makes it worse because otherwise they could have argued that the README was separate from the development of the tool itself, so the tool itself wasn't intended for violating copyright. By putting the infringing act into the code of the tool itself, they lose the ability to make that argument, and moreover show that the tool was built to infringe copyrights, because clearly they thought it was important enough to be able to infringe copyrights that they created multiple unit tests for it. are there any greater damages that aggrieved parties could calculate than the loss of advertising revenue from my repeated viewing of that file? The loss of advertising revenue is largely irrelevant unless the RIAA chooses to demonstrate the amount. Copyright law provides statutory damages starting at $750, and for that they just need to show a single infringing act (and for each additional act they prove, they get another $750). What incentive is there for me to share this file in violation of copyright if anyone can download a fair use copy for themselves, with the tools provided by youtube-dl? You're assuming a fair use case for using youtube-dl to download a copy of a licensed music video. But fair use is defense to a claim of violating copyright, so you need to show why your use is a fair use, you can't just say "fair use" as if it were a magic spell that makes your legal problems go away. And generally, it would be difficult to prove fair use for any of the content covered by an RIAA license because they make that content available for use offline, time-shifted, etc...they simply require that you pay for that.

michaelmrose 6y ago

>it doesn't matter if there are also legitimate fair use uses of the tool. What are you basing your legal theory on?

gamblor956 6y ago
The text of the DMCA and cases based on it. Once the infringing use has been established, it doesn't matter that there is also the potential for legitimate fair use. If it did, then Napster, Kazaa, and Limewire would still be around because they all had the potential for legitimate fair use.
- sl1ck731 6y ago
  Not having read any legal literature around or really understanding the DMCA, how can they not make a distinction between things with legitimate uses and not? How do torrent clients stand up to that?
  - mulmen 6y ago
    Torrent clients don’t name themselves “Game of Torrents” and have test cases for downloading TV shows. The problem YouTube-dl ran into is they literally named themselves after a prominent streaming site that is copyright holder friendly and also literally tested, in their codebase, the ability to do a thing that arguably violates the DMCA.
    - robertlagrant 6y ago
      Not sure the "literally" things are anything to do with this. Only the "arguably violates DMCA" is relevant, and we already knew it was arguable.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - mulmen 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

iTunes was designed [in part, probably a principal part of the original design] for CD ripping, I gather (I haven't personally used it more than twice, many years ago). Format shifting was at the time not allowed in UK copyright law, and again is not allowed as of a couple of years ago (it was only allowed for about a year). iTunes was designed for copyright violation. I'm sure the manual will show that. Just for comparison. It's my understanding that any media _can_ fall under Fair Use in the USA, meaning that there would have to be specification as to who was using the software and their circumstances within the unit tests in order to make it infringing use. You might fir example be archiving, or preparing educational materials, or compiling a review, or doing subtitling. It's not sufficient to prove someone downloaded, you have to show it was infringing activity. How do you do that with a unit test? Software to perform legitimate, legal downloads would still have to do that same test. In short you've found a smoking gun, now prove its principle purpose is murder. This comment is provided solely for entertainment and in no way relates to my employment.

gamblor956 6y ago
Tunes was designed [in part, probably a principal part of the original design] for CD ripping, I gather (I haven't personally used it more than twice, many years ago).... iTunes was designed for copyright violation. I'm sure the manual will show that. No, Itunes was designed for organizing music. How you got that music was a separate function,and you could split out the CD ripping functionality and still have the primary function of iTunes. Additionally, making copies of physical media for personal archival purposes is recognized as a legitimate fair use (and was back then), so the the CD ripping functionality would have generally still have been okay. And yes, there is case law on when ripping CDs is considered fair use and when it is not. It's my understanding that any media _can_ fall under Fair Use in the USA, meaning that there would have to be specification as to who was using the software and their circumstances within the unit tests in order to make it infringing use. You might fir example be archiving, or preparing educational materials, or compiling a review, or doing subtitling. Yes, any media can be subject to a fair use defense. The second statement is not relevant to the copyright analysis. The last statement are examples of fair use, but note that acquiring the content for the purposes of preparing educational materials is not automatically "fair use". For example, preparing educational materials for a class provided at a for-profit institution, or in educational materials sold commercially, would not support a fair use defense, though otherwise the use of copyright content in educational materials has generally been deemed fair use. It's not sufficient to prove someone downloaded, you have to show it was infringing activity. How do you do that with a unit test? Software to perform legitimate, legal downloads would still have to do that same test. The unit-test is a part of a different analysis from a basic copyright infringement claim; That question is whether the tool is intended for violating copyright and for that, they don't need to show any infringing activity actually took place, only that the tool was intended for infringing activity. The DMCA does not require a creator to suffer harm before they sue, since it recognizes that in the computer age, once such harm occurs it may not be possible to put the genie back in the bottle.

hajile 6y ago

A unit test seems like fair use. I don't know where tranformation would land as they are just streaming data and not actually viewing it. It's (potentially) the whole content, but a case that was literally just uploading an entire video as-is with a different title was ruled fair use not too long ago, so this isn't itself damning. The nature of the work seems irrelevant here as it's not viewed. It could easily be replaced with any other video -- even one owned by the repo creators. Likewise, since they are unit testing rather than viewing the content, I doubt there is any commercial harm and the market overlap between video viewers and unit testers is zero.

gamblor956 6y ago
No, the unit test isn't fair use, because it wasn't necessary to violate the license holder's copyrights in order to test the code. It's (potentially) the whole content, but a case that was literally just uploading an entire video as-is with a different title was ruled fair use not too long ago, so this isn't itself damning. I'd like to see a cite for that. Generally, uploading whole content owned by someone else is not fair use absent something like the content being newsworthy in itself (such as video of a police beating). Otherwise, fair use would generally require some transformative effort. Likewise, since they are unit testing rather than viewing the content, I doubt there is any commercial harm and the market overlap between video viewers and unit testers is zero. Copyright violations don't require the copyright holder to prove commercial harm. That's the entire point of statutory damages.
- hajile 6y ago
  "Not necessary" doesn't mean it's not still fair use. Lots of things aren't necessary but one definition or another. The argument here is that it's lack of necessity makes it incidental. Here's the Carl Benjamin case covered in bloomberg (you can look up the specific case if you'd like) https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/youtuber-wins-attorneys-fees-in-clinton-party-copyright-case https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/youtuber-wins-attorneys... > Copyright violations don't require the copyright holder to prove commercial harm. That's the entire point of statutory damages. This is explicitly one of the four points of fair use as stated by the US government, so it's very important. https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html

axiolite 6y ago

Downloading a Youtube video with youtube-dl IS NOT violating copyright in the USA. Downloading videos may violate Youtube's TOS, but that's civil/contract law and not criminal and so the DMCA can't be used to enforce such TOS violations. A person might share a video they don't own the copyright to, after downloading it from youtube with youtube-dl, but youtube-dl has no functionality in it to do such illegal sharing. It only has the time-shift functionality. The only tenuous leg the RIAA has to stand on is claiming that allowing only streaming of content constitutes some form of digital rights management code, and by reverse engineering it, without imposing the same restrictions as Youtube's website and apps, do, maybe that's some form of circumvention which will be found not entirely legal. They had to cite a German legal ruling which found YouTube’s “rolling cipher” was an anti-circumvention device. But German court rulings have no bearing on US law, and Germany doesn't have a DMCA statute, so it is a specious claim, and the RIAA is just hoping an open source project won't be able to fund a legal defense. It's Betamax time-shifting plus macrovision/video stabilizers all over again.

gamblor956 6y ago
Downloading a Youtube video with youtube-dl IS NOT violating copyright in the USA. Downloading videos may violate Youtube's TOS, but that's civil/contract law and not criminal and so the DMCA can't be used to enforce such TOS violations. Downloading a Youtube video is making a copy. Whether it is a copyright violation depends on whether Youtube's license includes letting visitors make permanent copies, as this is considered a separate type of license. The TOS has nothing to do with it. A person might share a video they don't own the copyright to, after downloading it from youtube with youtube-dl, but youtube-dl has no functionality in it to do such illegal sharing. It only has the time-shift functionality. This is false. Also, time-shifting is not a a valid fair-use defense for material available on-demand, because the justification for time-shifting (as in the Betamax case) generally no longer exists. There are other fair use arguments that could be made, but time-shifting isn't one of them. They had to cite a German legal ruling which found YouTube’s “rolling cipher” was an anti-circumvention device. But German court rulings have no bearing on US law, and Germany doesn't have a DMCA statute, so it is a specious claim, and the RIAA is just hoping an open source project won't be able to fund a legal defense. I don't know if you're joking or not, but they cited a variety of US cases. Kazaa, Limewire, Napster, etc, are all US cases that all came down the same way: a tool intended primarily for copyright violations violates the DMCA, and in certain cases can even expose its developers to statutory damages under the copyright code. It's Betamax time-shifting plus macrovision/video stabilizers all over again. Nope, not even close for so many reasons already explained in this and other comments.

tripzilch 6y ago

> And that's what the README showed: that youtube-dl was built primarily to violate copyright. That's not what "primarily" means.

theelous3 6y ago

edit: I misread.

scoot_718 6y ago

Sounds like Google are the ones infringing, not youtube-dl.