3 ms·

I keep thinking about this takedown... the issue at hand is the inclusion of youtube links in the readme, which encourages downloads of copyrighted works from y

by lxe 6y ago

I keep thinking about this takedown... the issue at hand is the inclusion of youtube links in the readme, which encourages downloads of copyrighted works from youtube. From the complaint: > The clear purpose of this source code is to (i) circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube, and (ii) reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use. (i) Does YouTube have "technological protection measures" that prevent downloading? In the case of the AACS controversy, this was a bit more clear-cut: there was a secret key that was cracked, but what exactly is being "circumvented" in this case? (ii) Nowhere does youtube-dl advertise that it's to be used to "reproduce and distribute" without authorization. I feel like this is a YouTube ToS violation, not a DMCA-strike-worthy copyright violation.

ttt0 6y ago
> the issue at hand is the inclusion of youtube links in the readme, which encourages downloads of copyrighted works from youtube. The README file doesn't encourage any downloads of any copyrighted works. All examples included in the README point to their own example video. The only thing that comes close to this is that they say that they will not support any services that are violating copyrights. The copyrighted content is used in test cases, that are not meant for users to see. > (i) Does YouTube have "technological protection measures" that prevent downloading? In the case of the AACS controversy, this was a bit more clear-cut: there was a secret key that was cracked, but what exactly is being "circumvented" in this case? What's being "circumvented" is the encrypted URL to the content. But it's not really circumvented, YouTube decrypts it with javascript. All youtube-dl does is that it interprets the javascript that's on their website, just like a web browser does. > (ii) Nowhere does youtube-dl advertise that it's to be used to "reproduce and distribute" without authorization. Correct. Not sure what "reproduce" means in legal speak, but youtube-dl doesn't even have any functionality to distribute anything.

by lxe 6y ago

ttt0 6y ago

> the issue at hand is the inclusion of youtube links in the readme, which encourages downloads of copyrighted works from youtube. The README file doesn't encourage any downloads of any copyrighted works. All examples included in the README point to their own example video. The only thing that comes close to this is that they say that they will not support any services that are violating copyrights. The copyrighted content is used in test cases, that are not meant for users to see. > (i) Does YouTube have "technological protection measures" that prevent downloading? In the case of the AACS controversy, this was a bit more clear-cut: there was a secret key that was cracked, but what exactly is being "circumvented" in this case? What's being "circumvented" is the encrypted URL to the content. But it's not really circumvented, YouTube decrypts it with javascript. All youtube-dl does is that it interprets the javascript that's on their website, just like a web browser does. > (ii) Nowhere does youtube-dl advertise that it's to be used to "reproduce and distribute" without authorization. Correct. Not sure what "reproduce" means in legal speak, but youtube-dl doesn't even have any functionality to distribute anything.