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Downloading copyrighted videos, just like home taping, is legal. There was a supreme court case deciding that the latter is legal. I have yet to hear any reason

Downloading copyrighted videos, just like home taping, is legal. There was a supreme court case deciding that the latter is legal. I have yet to hear any reasoning why "home taping, but on the internet" would not fall under that same precedent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Unive....

roywiggins 6y ago
Distributing a tool whose primary purpose is circumventing DRM is forbidden by the DMCA. The DMCA was signed long after the home-taping precedent, so that precedent doesn't really speak to what is and isn't allowed under the DMCA. Fair Use rights exist but if a law says "this isn't fair use", then it's not.
- SahAssar 6y ago
  The DRM argument would be relevant if youtube had any DRM. It does not, so it isn't.
  - m-p-3 6y ago
    Which is what I'm afraid Google will eventually add to YouTube.
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    They allege that it circumvents a "rolling cipher", which (they say) is sufficiently DRMy that it comes under the law. The DMCA doesn't have much of a definition of what counts as an access control measure, but the "rolling cipher" that scrambles the download URL looks like one if you squint. Exactly what counts as DRM is less of a technical question than a legal one, so (not being a copyright lawyer) it's not obvious to me what the right answer is. https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-23-RIAA.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-2... There is legitimately some obfuscation happening: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/06/youtube-download-counter-countermeasures-applied/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/06/youtube-download-counter-co...
filmgirlcw 6y ago
Because this is about distribution, not a home copy. You could copy and paste the test code into a terminal window and download the video. That’s not the same as a home recording.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > Because this is about distribution, not a home copy. You could copy and paste the test code into a terminal window and download the video. That’s not the same as a home recording. ...yes, it is? What difference are you imagining?
  - filmgirlcw 6y ago
    The difference is that my home copy is my own work and action. The distribution, in this case, via source code, allows anyone to download that copy. If the code snippet that downloaded infringing materials didn't exist and the user had to find the parameters themselves, that's fine. But it does exist and was included alongside a tool that makes that recording possible. A better analogy would be like, if you had a video store that had a machine in the store that allowed people to make copies of a video tape using a duplicating machine. If someone wants to buy a duplicator for home use and use it in their home, that's one thing (though there was litigation around that too), but if you go to a store and can plug in a video tape -- and the example in the store is a copy of a Disney movie -- that's sort of what this is. (Photocopy shops and libraries often have fairly strict rules about what kind of content can be photocopied, for what it's worth. The guy at Kinkos at 3am might not care that you're copying an entire textbook on the machine, but if you go to Office Depot in the daytime, they definitely will. Kinkos was sued and lost over a photocopy case in regards to excerpts/packets/anthologies for textbooks.)
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > A better analogy would be like, if you had a video store that had a machine in the store that allowed people to make copies of a video tape using a duplicating machine. If someone wants to buy a duplicator for home use and use it in their home, that's one thing That's what's happening here. Github is selling (for free) recording machines. If you have the recording device, then you can use it to record video that gets transmitted to you. But there isn't a place you can go to have the video duplicated for you. You do it yourself.

roywiggins 6y ago

Distributing a tool whose primary purpose is circumventing DRM is forbidden by the DMCA. The DMCA was signed long after the home-taping precedent, so that precedent doesn't really speak to what is and isn't allowed under the DMCA. Fair Use rights exist but if a law says "this isn't fair use", then it's not.

SahAssar 6y ago
The DRM argument would be relevant if youtube had any DRM. It does not, so it isn't.
- m-p-3 6y ago
  Which is what I'm afraid Google will eventually add to YouTube.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  They allege that it circumvents a "rolling cipher", which (they say) is sufficiently DRMy that it comes under the law. The DMCA doesn't have much of a definition of what counts as an access control measure, but the "rolling cipher" that scrambles the download URL looks like one if you squint. Exactly what counts as DRM is less of a technical question than a legal one, so (not being a copyright lawyer) it's not obvious to me what the right answer is. https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-23-RIAA.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-2... There is legitimately some obfuscation happening: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/06/youtube-download-counter-countermeasures-applied/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/06/youtube-download-counter-co...

filmgirlcw 6y ago

Because this is about distribution, not a home copy. You could copy and paste the test code into a terminal window and download the video. That’s not the same as a home recording.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Because this is about distribution, not a home copy. You could copy and paste the test code into a terminal window and download the video. That’s not the same as a home recording. ...yes, it is? What difference are you imagining?
- filmgirlcw 6y ago
  The difference is that my home copy is my own work and action. The distribution, in this case, via source code, allows anyone to download that copy. If the code snippet that downloaded infringing materials didn't exist and the user had to find the parameters themselves, that's fine. But it does exist and was included alongside a tool that makes that recording possible. A better analogy would be like, if you had a video store that had a machine in the store that allowed people to make copies of a video tape using a duplicating machine. If someone wants to buy a duplicator for home use and use it in their home, that's one thing (though there was litigation around that too), but if you go to a store and can plug in a video tape -- and the example in the store is a copy of a Disney movie -- that's sort of what this is. (Photocopy shops and libraries often have fairly strict rules about what kind of content can be photocopied, for what it's worth. The guy at Kinkos at 3am might not care that you're copying an entire textbook on the machine, but if you go to Office Depot in the daytime, they definitely will. Kinkos was sued and lost over a photocopy case in regards to excerpts/packets/anthologies for textbooks.)
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > A better analogy would be like, if you had a video store that had a machine in the store that allowed people to make copies of a video tape using a duplicating machine. If someone wants to buy a duplicator for home use and use it in their home, that's one thing That's what's happening here. Github is selling (for free) recording machines. If you have the recording device, then you can use it to record video that gets transmitted to you. But there isn't a place you can go to have the video duplicated for you. You do it yourself.