8 ms·

Imo... people should be able to download stuff for free if they’re able to see it for free. The “you can see it but you must watch an ad” model is weird and lea

Imo... people should be able to download stuff for free if they’re able to see it for free. The “you can see it but you must watch an ad” model is weird and leads to unenforceable/wacky situations like this (I’m not really a stakeholder tho so who cares what I think)

WilTimSon 6y ago
It's strange to me because I've been using adblokcers for as long as I've been watching things online, as do a large percentage of people, I'm sure. So does it really matter that much to YouTube when I download some video, considering me watching it brings it literally no benefit? What's the gain here?
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Control. Intellectual property law is about controlling what you can see, and do, with your own eyes, ears, and hardware. If you stream a video on YouTube, YouTube can arbitrarily take it away from you whenever they want. If you download a video from YouTube, it's yours to keep. Tools like youtube-dl take away the power YouTube has over you, and that's an unacceptable loss to the ownership class even if they suffer no financial losses.
comeonseriously 6y ago
> The “you can see it but you must watch and ad” model... ... funds OTA television. Also funds YT. With OTA, it is okay to record OTA broadcasts using a VCR, so I'm not sure why youtube-dl would be different.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  The different, Google would argue, is that YouTube-dl doesn't download the ads, while a VCR captures ads and content alike. But really, if the VCR were invented today, it would be made illegal.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    It's not like they didn't try their damnedest to make the VCR illegal when it was invented.
  - LocalH 6y ago
    Not like they didn’t try to make it illegal originally. “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.“ - Jack Valenti, former MPAA president, in 1982, explaining to Congress why the VCR should be illegal
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      I think that quote really shows where the organization's priorities are with respect to individual rights.
  - fabianhjr 6y ago
    You can easily splice out the ads from DVRs/VCRs.
    - Mister_Snuggles 6y ago
      I even have a VHS VCR that does this automatically. It’s fascinating - once the recording is done it rewinds and watches the show at high speed, when it sees something in the signal that indicates that an ad was spliced in it marks the start and end. Then when playing back it fast-forwards over the commercials. It worked brilliantly, back in the days of analog cable TV.
  - filmgirlcw 6y ago
    I mean, they tried desperately to make it illegal in the 80s. The Betamax case went to the Supreme Court! [1] Given the current makeup of justices, I would imagine Betamax would be decided differently today, in favor of Universal rather than Sony. Aereo lost 6-3, even though the dissenting justices cited Betamax from 30 years previous. ReplayTV was sued and went out of business before it could be fully adjudicated. Dish was sued over its Hopper DVR that auto-skipped ads and ultimately had to settle. TiVo won some of their lawsuits but because it didn’t do automatic commercial skipping of the recordings, was spared her wrath of the networks like Replay was. (TiVo was ultimately ruined by the cable companies who sought to introduce their own inferior DVRs that they could charge a monthly fee over.) [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Uni....
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  DMCA section 1201 is not about copyright infringement. It’s there to make things that are not copyright infringement illegal. This is how John Deere got away with prohibiting farmers from repairing their tractors, etc. This is why time-shifting and format-shifting were just fine for OTA/cable television/CDs/etc but are practically nonexistent today.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/1201-v-dl-youtube/#1201 https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/1201-v-dl-youtube/#1201 EFF: https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca https://www.eff.org/search/site/1201 https://www.eff.org/search/site/1201
- criddell 6y ago
  I never thought of the VCR comparison before and it's interesting. Is recording a video delivered over IP different than recording a video delivered OTA or via cable (which is probably IP these days)?
rektide 6y ago
Worth reminding people that Big Content Holding industry came all too close to getting VHS tapes outlawed. > In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that Sony could continue to sell its Betamax videocassette recorder, overruling the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judgement that held Sony liable for consumers’ copyright infringement. https://consumerist.com/2014/01/17/on-this-day-in-1984-the-supreme-court-saved-the-vcr-from-certain-death/ https://consumerist.com/2014/01/17/on-this-day-in-1984-the-s... Same s*, different decade.

WilTimSon 6y ago

It's strange to me because I've been using adblokcers for as long as I've been watching things online, as do a large percentage of people, I'm sure. So does it really matter that much to YouTube when I download some video, considering me watching it brings it literally no benefit? What's the gain here?

bleepblorp 6y ago
Control. Intellectual property law is about controlling what you can see, and do, with your own eyes, ears, and hardware. If you stream a video on YouTube, YouTube can arbitrarily take it away from you whenever they want. If you download a video from YouTube, it's yours to keep. Tools like youtube-dl take away the power YouTube has over you, and that's an unacceptable loss to the ownership class even if they suffer no financial losses.

comeonseriously 6y ago

> The “you can see it but you must watch and ad” model... ... funds OTA television. Also funds YT. With OTA, it is okay to record OTA broadcasts using a VCR, so I'm not sure why youtube-dl would be different.

pwinnski 6y ago
The different, Google would argue, is that YouTube-dl doesn't download the ads, while a VCR captures ads and content alike. But really, if the VCR were invented today, it would be made illegal.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  It's not like they didn't try their damnedest to make the VCR illegal when it was invented.
- LocalH 6y ago
  Not like they didn’t try to make it illegal originally. “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.“ - Jack Valenti, former MPAA president, in 1982, explaining to Congress why the VCR should be illegal
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    I think that quote really shows where the organization's priorities are with respect to individual rights.
- fabianhjr 6y ago
  You can easily splice out the ads from DVRs/VCRs.
  - Mister_Snuggles 6y ago
    I even have a VHS VCR that does this automatically. It’s fascinating - once the recording is done it rewinds and watches the show at high speed, when it sees something in the signal that indicates that an ad was spliced in it marks the start and end. Then when playing back it fast-forwards over the commercials. It worked brilliantly, back in the days of analog cable TV.
- filmgirlcw 6y ago
  I mean, they tried desperately to make it illegal in the 80s. The Betamax case went to the Supreme Court! [1] Given the current makeup of justices, I would imagine Betamax would be decided differently today, in favor of Universal rather than Sony. Aereo lost 6-3, even though the dissenting justices cited Betamax from 30 years previous. ReplayTV was sued and went out of business before it could be fully adjudicated. Dish was sued over its Hopper DVR that auto-skipped ads and ultimately had to settle. TiVo won some of their lawsuits but because it didn’t do automatic commercial skipping of the recordings, was spared her wrath of the networks like Replay was. (TiVo was ultimately ruined by the cable companies who sought to introduce their own inferior DVRs that they could charge a monthly fee over.) [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Uni....
ryukafalz 6y ago
DMCA section 1201 is not about copyright infringement. It’s there to make things that are not copyright infringement illegal. This is how John Deere got away with prohibiting farmers from repairing their tractors, etc. This is why time-shifting and format-shifting were just fine for OTA/cable television/CDs/etc but are practically nonexistent today.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/1201-v-dl-youtube/#1201 https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/1201-v-dl-youtube/#1201 EFF: https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca https://www.eff.org/search/site/1201 https://www.eff.org/search/site/1201
criddell 6y ago
I never thought of the VCR comparison before and it's interesting. Is recording a video delivered over IP different than recording a video delivered OTA or via cable (which is probably IP these days)?

rektide 6y ago

Worth reminding people that Big Content Holding industry came all too close to getting VHS tapes outlawed. > In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that Sony could continue to sell its Betamax videocassette recorder, overruling the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judgement that held Sony liable for consumers’ copyright infringement. https://consumerist.com/2014/01/17/on-this-day-in-1984-the-supreme-court-saved-the-vcr-from-certain-death/ https://consumerist.com/2014/01/17/on-this-day-in-1984-the-s... Same s*, different decade.