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Overall, in this case you cannot assume to be right by relying on fair use, because fair use as a legal concept implies that there has to be a court decision in

Overall, in this case you cannot assume to be right by relying on fair use, because fair use as a legal concept implies that there has to be a court decision in order to exist. And all of the required measurements in order to apply fair use are almost impossible to prove, therefore it is an unlikely case to win in court. I agree with the political sentiment in this discussion, and I have a biased opinion, too - but when talking about pushing the needle in a specific direction the maintainers of youtubedl did a bad job at doing so. I mean, they have one of the most powerful industries siding against them, with nearly unlimited funding, so it is obvious that this was bound to happen and they should have been more careful. Especially when they, as a project, cannot afford lawyers to fight potential battles in court. That's why I described it as an unnecessary attack surface, because that's what it is. Don't give them reasons to push the needle.

GoblinSlayer 6y ago
>one of the most powerful industries That's just a reason to not pay them anything ever even you find it desirable, they are obviously incapable to handle the money, powerful and incompetent is just too malicious.
tveita 6y ago
> they have one of the most powerful industries siding against them, with nearly unlimited funding The music industry through RIAA are aggressive and may be punching above their weight class in litigation and lobbying, but remember that they are not really that large in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not in the class of juggernauts like oil, medicine etc. https://www.riaa.com/reportcat/sales-revenue/ https://www.riaa.com/reportcat/sales-revenue/ says the US music industry had $11.1 billion in revenue for 2019, a fraction of many large tech companies.
- brokenmachine 6y ago
  Although this is fact is probably correct, and is mildly interesting, it has no relevance here because $11.1 billion is certainly a hell of a lot more than youtube-dl has to fight them in court.
romanoderoma 6y ago
> because fair use as a legal concept implies that there has to be a court decision in order to exist. There are countries where fair use is always permitted unless a court decision prohibits it in that single case.

GoblinSlayer 6y ago

>one of the most powerful industries That's just a reason to not pay them anything ever even you find it desirable, they are obviously incapable to handle the money, powerful and incompetent is just too malicious.

tveita 6y ago

> they have one of the most powerful industries siding against them, with nearly unlimited funding The music industry through RIAA are aggressive and may be punching above their weight class in litigation and lobbying, but remember that they are not really that large in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not in the class of juggernauts like oil, medicine etc. https://www.riaa.com/reportcat/sales-revenue/ https://www.riaa.com/reportcat/sales-revenue/ says the US music industry had $11.1 billion in revenue for 2019, a fraction of many large tech companies.

brokenmachine 6y ago
Although this is fact is probably correct, and is mildly interesting, it has no relevance here because $11.1 billion is certainly a hell of a lot more than youtube-dl has to fight them in court.

romanoderoma 6y ago

> because fair use as a legal concept implies that there has to be a court decision in order to exist. There are countries where fair use is always permitted unless a court decision prohibits it in that single case.