5 ms·

Gitee.com is a popular Chinese alternative. I'm pretty sure it'd be safe there.

stevefan1999 6y ago
I don't think so. Youtube-DL can rip some popular Chinese VOD websites such as Bilibili and iQIYI, thus will first be "subjectable" to the Chinese equivalent of DMCA. Worse, these companies are often backed/protected by powerful figures (often under the umbrella of some influential state members) and under such power, these kind of "threats" will be eradicated very efficiently, especially with Bilibili which is partially "state-monitored" (not sure if sponsored) due to the presence of the channel of the official youth branch of CCP is opened there [1]. Thus, relocating your repository to gangs aren't safe at all. A rule of thumb: The prerequisite for your business to survive in China is that you need to have powerful affiliates, and make sure you do not piss off that powerful guy. [1]: https://space.bilibili.com/20165629?from=search&seid=12774176251470057946 https://space.bilibili.com/20165629?from=search&seid=1277417...
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  It's hilarious how people on this site reacts at the mere mention of China on any topic. Everyone is apparently an expert. Gitee has hosted a youtube-dl mirror for years. https://gitee.com/mirrors/youtube-dlg https://gitee.com/mirrors/youtube-dlg
  - justinclift 6y ago
    Um, that doesn't look like a youtube-dl mirror? It seems to be an old (last updated 2 yrs ago) project providing some kind of gui for youtube-dl.
  - stevefan1999 6y ago
    Hate to say about it but I'm ethically Chinese and I just happened to know some little thing about it...I know it's a great gambit so I hope I don't have to use the race card at the very least... Then people straight out attacking me thinking I'm attacking China...
    - fapjacks 6y ago
      Were you born and raised in China? If not, this is the lamest reply ever. Using any "race card" is never okay, not only because it is just a perversion of appeal to authority, but also because your ethnicity does not impart any special secret knowledge about the universe that a few supporting links can't also reveal. Appealing to your ethnicity is not a proxy for being a member of some culture.
yorwba 6y ago
China has extremely strict anti-scraping laws [1] so pointing out that youtube-dl is a tool that can be used to illegally scrape copyrighted data is likely to have the same effect as a DMCA takedown request with the same justification. [1] a collection of cases: https://github.com/HiddenStrawberry/Crawler_Illegal_Cases_In_China https://github.com/HiddenStrawberry/Crawler_Illegal_Cases_In...
- oefrha 6y ago
  > China has extremely strict anti-scraping laws It might be the case, but the repo you linked doesn't support that claim very well, and the cases cited are largely irrelevant to the case at hand. "Forbidden area #1: providing scraping-related services to criminal organizations". Three cases listed. The first is one programmer's personal account of being arrested, which is very scant on why; the only info I can glean: "I developed some sort of ML API which is then used by a criminal enterprise against some influential company for god knows what purpose". Hard to draw any conclusion from that. The second case is ML-based CAPTCHA bypass for credential stuffing against Tencent QQ, emphasis on credential stuffing. The third case is some sort of black hat SEO campaign against Baidu, the scraping part (if any?) doesn't seem central to the conviction. "Forbidden area #2: scraping and sale of personal info". Common sense, irrelevant. "Forbidden area #3: commercial use of unlicensed business data" and the following untitled category list three cases, all of which are mass scraping operations either from a business competitor or that seriously affects site operations (through aggressive scraping). AFAIK there are a lot of low hanging fruits in the Chinese piracy scene not yet targeted, and there are enough small-time commercial operations involving copyrighted media products begging to be taken down, it's highly unlikely anyone will bother to target some high-barrier-of-entry tool mostly facilitating the download of otherwise public videos.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    #1 is relevant, because the developers of scraping services themselves were held liable for the use of their tools for illegal purposes. As you say, there are many small-time copyright infringers (a.k.a. criminal organizations), some of which probably use youtube-dl to circumvent anti-scraping measures (analogous to the CAPTCHA bypass case). > it's highly unlikely anyone will bother to target some high-barrier-of-entry tool mostly facilitating the download of otherwise public videos It's true that any particular violation is unlikely to be prosecuted because there are so many, but youtube-dl is already being targeted, so if it stays up on Gitee (or Gitlab, for that matter), then only because RIAA doesn't file a complaint.
wener 6y ago
You need to give you phone number to use there service, it's China.

stevefan1999 6y ago

I don't think so. Youtube-DL can rip some popular Chinese VOD websites such as Bilibili and iQIYI, thus will first be "subjectable" to the Chinese equivalent of DMCA. Worse, these companies are often backed/protected by powerful figures (often under the umbrella of some influential state members) and under such power, these kind of "threats" will be eradicated very efficiently, especially with Bilibili which is partially "state-monitored" (not sure if sponsored) due to the presence of the channel of the official youth branch of CCP is opened there [1]. Thus, relocating your repository to gangs aren't safe at all. A rule of thumb: The prerequisite for your business to survive in China is that you need to have powerful affiliates, and make sure you do not piss off that powerful guy. [1]: https://space.bilibili.com/20165629?from=search&seid=12774176251470057946 https://space.bilibili.com/20165629?from=search&seid=1277417...

DarthGhandi 6y ago
It's hilarious how people on this site reacts at the mere mention of China on any topic. Everyone is apparently an expert. Gitee has hosted a youtube-dl mirror for years. https://gitee.com/mirrors/youtube-dlg https://gitee.com/mirrors/youtube-dlg
- justinclift 6y ago
  Um, that doesn't look like a youtube-dl mirror? It seems to be an old (last updated 2 yrs ago) project providing some kind of gui for youtube-dl.
- stevefan1999 6y ago
  Hate to say about it but I'm ethically Chinese and I just happened to know some little thing about it...I know it's a great gambit so I hope I don't have to use the race card at the very least... Then people straight out attacking me thinking I'm attacking China...
  - fapjacks 6y ago
    Were you born and raised in China? If not, this is the lamest reply ever. Using any "race card" is never okay, not only because it is just a perversion of appeal to authority, but also because your ethnicity does not impart any special secret knowledge about the universe that a few supporting links can't also reveal. Appealing to your ethnicity is not a proxy for being a member of some culture.

yorwba 6y ago

China has extremely strict anti-scraping laws [1] so pointing out that youtube-dl is a tool that can be used to illegally scrape copyrighted data is likely to have the same effect as a DMCA takedown request with the same justification. [1] a collection of cases: https://github.com/HiddenStrawberry/Crawler_Illegal_Cases_In_China https://github.com/HiddenStrawberry/Crawler_Illegal_Cases_In...

oefrha 6y ago
> China has extremely strict anti-scraping laws It might be the case, but the repo you linked doesn't support that claim very well, and the cases cited are largely irrelevant to the case at hand. "Forbidden area #1: providing scraping-related services to criminal organizations". Three cases listed. The first is one programmer's personal account of being arrested, which is very scant on why; the only info I can glean: "I developed some sort of ML API which is then used by a criminal enterprise against some influential company for god knows what purpose". Hard to draw any conclusion from that. The second case is ML-based CAPTCHA bypass for credential stuffing against Tencent QQ, emphasis on credential stuffing. The third case is some sort of black hat SEO campaign against Baidu, the scraping part (if any?) doesn't seem central to the conviction. "Forbidden area #2: scraping and sale of personal info". Common sense, irrelevant. "Forbidden area #3: commercial use of unlicensed business data" and the following untitled category list three cases, all of which are mass scraping operations either from a business competitor or that seriously affects site operations (through aggressive scraping). AFAIK there are a lot of low hanging fruits in the Chinese piracy scene not yet targeted, and there are enough small-time commercial operations involving copyrighted media products begging to be taken down, it's highly unlikely anyone will bother to target some high-barrier-of-entry tool mostly facilitating the download of otherwise public videos.
- yorwba 6y ago
  #1 is relevant, because the developers of scraping services themselves were held liable for the use of their tools for illegal purposes. As you say, there are many small-time copyright infringers (a.k.a. criminal organizations), some of which probably use youtube-dl to circumvent anti-scraping measures (analogous to the CAPTCHA bypass case). > it's highly unlikely anyone will bother to target some high-barrier-of-entry tool mostly facilitating the download of otherwise public videos It's true that any particular violation is unlikely to be prosecuted because there are so many, but youtube-dl is already being targeted, so if it stays up on Gitee (or Gitlab, for that matter), then only because RIAA doesn't file a complaint.

wener 6y ago

You need to give you phone number to use there service, it's China.