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There were no such links in the documentation. Rather, various youtube partners like VEVO have special encoding schemes and the youtube-dl test suite includes
by nullc 6y ago
There were no such links in the documentation. Rather, various youtube partners like VEVO have special encoding schemes and the youtube-dl test suite includes tests for handling these schemes. Because the different styles are only used on partner content it isn't possible for those specific test case to use a CC-BY(-SA) work. Moreover, the test cases only download under 1 second of video and don't even store it.
AFAICT all the documentation examples are test videos uploaded by the youtube-dl authors themselves and ones by the Linux Foundation.
The complaint submitted to github was not a DMCA takedown (17 U.S. Code § 512), though it was superficially formatted like one. It was a complaint regarding 17 U.S. Code § 1201 anti-circumvention. There is no counter-claim (or takedown, for that matter) provision in that law because there is no safe harbor.
Moreover, your description of a §512 takedown is simply incorrect. Github is not obligated to take down a work when they receive a well formed DMCA notice: rather, they obtain an immunity from lawsuit for that particular infringement if they follow the procedure. In cases where there is transparently no infringement that immunity isn't worth much. In all cases it's simply a business decision to accept the liability or not vs the interruption in customer relationships, distrust, and loss of goodwill that can result from cutting off a user... no different than the decision to take on liability in any other business activity.
Maybe try avoiding such strong language when you haven't personally researched the subject in great detail?
- kzrdude 6y agoIt seems like yt-dl should move that functionality into a plug-in, so that maybe it can be fully supported but kept at an arm's length.
- jron 6y agoChanging something at this point feels like an admission of guilt. I can't imagine a better case for de minimis use than this.
- nullc 6y agoPart of the value of youtube-dl is that its reliable. If it randomly didn't work on some URLs it would make it much less useful. Moreover, there would be a risk that unethical actors would exploit the URLs that don't work in order to conduct unarchivable fraud.
- kzrdude 6y agoIt's not very reliable because it can't be, any of the sites can change on any particular day, but they really try their best.
- dwheeler 6y agoSorry, I did read the complaint and it appeared what I said earlier was correct. It sounds like I misunderstood things; thanks for the correction! My main point still stands, though: They need a lawyer.
- dwheeler 6y agoI did say, "If this is a real DMCA takedown...". You are legally correct that GitHub in isn't obligated to take down a work if they receive a DMCA notice. But that would be very bad advice to take. GitHub handles millions of repos. GitHub could take a huge gamble by keeping the material posted after a DMCA request, or just take it down, wait for the DMCA counterclaim, and put it up after the counterclaim was filed. A CEO could easily get fired for risking the entire company when there was a no-risk alternative with the same result. The legal penalties are so stiff, and so easily avoided, that it would be improbable for a company to do anything else. This apparently isn't a DMCA takedown anyway, but I thought I should comment on your response. Anyway, I'll repeat myself yet again: They need a lawyer.
- nullc 6y agoYet companies ignore DMCA complaints all the time. Github is unusual in my experience in that they act on even transparently fraudulent DMCA notices (I am reminded of a few years ago where they took all of Mozilla's repost offline because of a obviously bogus DMCA complaint filed by a intern that was furious that their changes weren't merged or something along those lines). And while copyright penalties look pretty stiff, they're pretty non-threatening compared to ordinary state product liability-- which is almost completely non-disclaimable. Liability is just one of the consequences of doing business. I certainly wouldn't suggest that Github should be ignoring DMCA complaints as a general practice (though plenty of providers sure seem to do so), but in this case I think they could make a calculation that the risk might be worth it: I know quite a few parties that have moved off github as a result of this incident.