5 ms·

But youtube-dl is not a "pirate method", it's a neutral tool for downloading video contents. Presumably, you have the right to download those contents.

by mekoka 6y ago

mckeed 6y ago
Does anyone technically have the right to download from youtube in this way? Even if so, it's clearly in the category of software predominantly used for piracy, all of which can also have legitimate uses.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  Can you explain what makes you think that even makes sense? Most of the relevant YouTube videos are already available for free to the public, so there is no real incentive to download them from YouTube and upload them to The Pirate Bay. Downloading a copy for personal use would often fall under fair use. Uses with third party video players like mpv aren't even making a permanent copy. Many of the videos are in the public domain (e.g. from NASA) or are permissively licensed (e.g. many university course lecture videos or conference talks). Who is even using this for some kind of meaningful copyright infringement?
  - roblabla 6y ago
    > Downloading a copy for personal use would often fall under fair use. Downloading a copy for personal use isn't even copyright infringement - for copyright infringement to happen, you'd have to then share that copy you made. For instance, you are allowed to do VHS copies of TV shows, and that was confirmed by Supreme Court[0]. This whole thing doesn't make sense to me either. [0]: 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....
    - sjy 6y ago
      The Betamax case predates the DMCA, which created the “anti-circumvention” laws the RIAA is relying on here. It was also a 5:4 decision that depended on “a significant likelihood that substantial numbers of copyright holders who license their works for broadcast on free television would not object to having their broadcasts time-shifted,” and the copyright holders’ failure “to demonstrate that time-shifting would cause any likelihood of non-minimal harm to the potential market for, or the value of, their copyrighted works.” The opinion explicitly did not cover pay TV, and the court also noted that the cost of Betamax tapes made it difficult to build your own library of tapes for repeated viewing, in concluding that there was no likelihood of harm. I think it’s an interesting and open question whether the typical use of youtube-dl falls under fair use.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  What a bizarre revisionist point of view. Radio players quite naturally learned to record to cassettes once the technology was available and no one ever came to raid player manufacturers, nor did anyone brand the kid sitting at home recording the radio some piracy overlord. Stop repeating this RIAA nonsense.
  - crtasm 6y ago
    Unsure if this is sarcasm, if not it sounds like you missed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music
    - NeutronStar 6y ago
      Just because I make propaganda doesn't meant the message is real.
    - crtasm 6y ago
      also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy
- xorcist 6y ago
  If you publish a youtube video publicly, there is an expectation that the public is allowed to view it. Is the idea that the author didn't have the rights to publish the video in the first place, due to things like unlicensed background music? Thus far, Youtube is under the safe harbor principle of the DMCA, and as long as they honor those takedown notices, the end user is not likely to be held accountable. The software they use is even less likely to be.
josteink 6y ago
The new narrative is that obviously you’re not permitted expect in very rare circumstances, so any tool used to aid actual fair use gets slammed with DMCA take-downs. I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s how they’ve been trying to frame the discussion for a long time now.
- feanaro 6y ago
  Yes, and I'm very surprised at the number of people that are apparently falling for this narrative. It would've been unthinkable just a decade ago, it seems. It's good to see others recognise it for what it is. It needs to be strongly pushed back.
  - LordDragonfang 6y ago
    That's because even a decade ago (well, a decade and a half, factoring in recent memory), the internet was a fundamentally different, much more open place. Now probably 90% of traffic exists in increasingly siloed walled gardens, which all take measures to ensure their content (and more importantly, you) stay there. (Hell, a good portion of that traffic isn't even from some general-purpose browser, it's from an app.) And circumventing that is pretty much the letter of the (poorly worded) law when it comes to the DMCA. It's not really the people that have changed, it's the internet that has. (Sure, many parts of the internet are still open, but youtube isn't one of them.)
xorcist 6y ago
Could we not call it "watch" instead? It's a neutral tool to watch youtube videos. How exactly the video file gets downloaded into the viewing device is an implementation detail. Whether it's a MythTV plugin, that free Android app, Firefox, or this Python tool isn't important. If one of them is declared illegal in some jurisdiction, they all are.
- hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
  There’s no technical differentiation between downloading and watching.
  - lozf 6y ago
    Apart from bandwidth being used quicker as the HLS/DASH segments are requested from the server at shorter intervals.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
      Unsure if that can be configured or not, but if your video content distribution network can’t rate limit or handle bursts you probably have more pressing issues.
      - lozf 6y ago
        Agreed, just mentioning a "technical difference" that could be used to determine if people are watching in real time vs downloading-with-a-tool-that-grabs-everything-as-fast-as-possible. Since this is Google, it's fair to assume they might be interested in anything that causes them to lose Ad revenue.
- nkrisc 6y ago
  It's important if a court cares, which would probably be the case. Watching a YouTube video on Firefox is unlikely to be construed as circumventing DRM while downloading the same video with youtube-dl conceivably could be construed as such. Courts aren't always concerned with technical differences, more often intent.

But youtube-dl is not a "pirate method", it's a neutral tool for downloading video contents. Presumably, you have the right to download those contents.

by mekoka 6y ago

But youtube-dl is not a "pirate method", it's a neutral tool for downloading video contents. Presumably, you have the right to download those contents.

mckeed 6y ago

Does anyone technically have the right to download from youtube in this way? Even if so, it's clearly in the category of software predominantly used for piracy, all of which can also have legitimate uses.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Can you explain what makes you think that even makes sense? Most of the relevant YouTube videos are already available for free to the public, so there is no real incentive to download them from YouTube and upload them to The Pirate Bay. Downloading a copy for personal use would often fall under fair use. Uses with third party video players like mpv aren't even making a permanent copy. Many of the videos are in the public domain (e.g. from NASA) or are permissively licensed (e.g. many university course lecture videos or conference talks). Who is even using this for some kind of meaningful copyright infringement?
- roblabla 6y ago
  > Downloading a copy for personal use would often fall under fair use. Downloading a copy for personal use isn't even copyright infringement - for copyright infringement to happen, you'd have to then share that copy you made. For instance, you are allowed to do VHS copies of TV shows, and that was confirmed by Supreme Court[0]. This whole thing doesn't make sense to me either. [0]: 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....
  - sjy 6y ago
    The Betamax case predates the DMCA, which created the “anti-circumvention” laws the RIAA is relying on here. It was also a 5:4 decision that depended on “a significant likelihood that substantial numbers of copyright holders who license their works for broadcast on free television would not object to having their broadcasts time-shifted,” and the copyright holders’ failure “to demonstrate that time-shifting would cause any likelihood of non-minimal harm to the potential market for, or the value of, their copyrighted works.” The opinion explicitly did not cover pay TV, and the court also noted that the cost of Betamax tapes made it difficult to build your own library of tapes for repeated viewing, in concluding that there was no likelihood of harm. I think it’s an interesting and open question whether the typical use of youtube-dl falls under fair use.
stefan_ 6y ago
What a bizarre revisionist point of view. Radio players quite naturally learned to record to cassettes once the technology was available and no one ever came to raid player manufacturers, nor did anyone brand the kid sitting at home recording the radio some piracy overlord. Stop repeating this RIAA nonsense.
- crtasm 6y ago
  Unsure if this is sarcasm, if not it sounds like you missed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music
  - NeutronStar 6y ago
    Just because I make propaganda doesn't meant the message is real.
  - crtasm 6y ago
    also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy
xorcist 6y ago
If you publish a youtube video publicly, there is an expectation that the public is allowed to view it. Is the idea that the author didn't have the rights to publish the video in the first place, due to things like unlicensed background music? Thus far, Youtube is under the safe harbor principle of the DMCA, and as long as they honor those takedown notices, the end user is not likely to be held accountable. The software they use is even less likely to be.

josteink 6y ago

The new narrative is that obviously you’re not permitted expect in very rare circumstances, so any tool used to aid actual fair use gets slammed with DMCA take-downs. I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s how they’ve been trying to frame the discussion for a long time now.

feanaro 6y ago
Yes, and I'm very surprised at the number of people that are apparently falling for this narrative. It would've been unthinkable just a decade ago, it seems. It's good to see others recognise it for what it is. It needs to be strongly pushed back.
- LordDragonfang 6y ago
  That's because even a decade ago (well, a decade and a half, factoring in recent memory), the internet was a fundamentally different, much more open place. Now probably 90% of traffic exists in increasingly siloed walled gardens, which all take measures to ensure their content (and more importantly, you) stay there. (Hell, a good portion of that traffic isn't even from some general-purpose browser, it's from an app.) And circumventing that is pretty much the letter of the (poorly worded) law when it comes to the DMCA. It's not really the people that have changed, it's the internet that has. (Sure, many parts of the internet are still open, but youtube isn't one of them.)

xorcist 6y ago

Could we not call it "watch" instead? It's a neutral tool to watch youtube videos. How exactly the video file gets downloaded into the viewing device is an implementation detail. Whether it's a MythTV plugin, that free Android app, Firefox, or this Python tool isn't important. If one of them is declared illegal in some jurisdiction, they all are.

hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
There’s no technical differentiation between downloading and watching.
- lozf 6y ago
  Apart from bandwidth being used quicker as the HLS/DASH segments are requested from the server at shorter intervals.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
    Unsure if that can be configured or not, but if your video content distribution network can’t rate limit or handle bursts you probably have more pressing issues.
    - lozf 6y ago
      Agreed, just mentioning a "technical difference" that could be used to determine if people are watching in real time vs downloading-with-a-tool-that-grabs-everything-as-fast-as-possible. Since this is Google, it's fair to assume they might be interested in anything that causes them to lose Ad revenue.
nkrisc 6y ago
It's important if a court cares, which would probably be the case. Watching a YouTube video on Firefox is unlikely to be construed as circumventing DRM while downloading the same video with youtube-dl conceivably could be construed as such. Courts aren't always concerned with technical differences, more often intent.