4 ms·

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 imp

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.
- xorcist 6y ago
  No court has found any of the mentioned software to be illegal so far, anywhere. They are all interchangeable. Should one implementation be found problematic, in theory it can be swapped with another. It's not comparable to DRM, where a particular software can be licensed for a particular digital protection mechanism. In this case either they all are, or none are.
  - nkrisc 6y ago
    You're still just focused on technical implementation and not the intent behind actions, which is also important and will likely be considered by the courts. While there is no technical difference, there is quite a difference of intent between watching a streaming video and downloading it to circumvent copy-protection.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
That would make little sense because the tool itself doesn't have anything to do with watching videos. It only downloads them, or pieces of them, and does some format and metadata conversion. The name describes precisely what it does: it downloads data.
- Liskni_si 6y ago
  That's not entirely true. youtube-dl, used as a library in a media player like mpv, is quite literally used for watching videos.
majewsky 6y ago
youtube-dl is used for reasons other than just watching videos. For example, journalists use it to download videos from YouTube to edit them into their news stories. Data scientists are using it to download videos for automated analysis in quantities larger than any of the involved scientists could ever watch. Both are not "watching" in the narrow sense implied by the word, but not copyright violations either because they probably qualify as fair use.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  The point is that youtube-dl does exactly the same thing as every other method of watching the video. You can't watch the video -- by any means -- without downloading it first. The uses you list may not be "watching" in a particular sense of the word, but they are "watching" in the same sense of the word that is relevant to using a web browser -- the only sense that would apply to YouTube.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    It doesn't matter. YouTube's Standard License authorizes certain videos to be viewed only by streaming through YouTube's web player or an authorized client. This is enforced by obfuscating code in the player. By circumventing that code, youtube-dl veers into "illegal piracy tool" territory. Note that it wouldn't matter if youtube-dl contained no deobfuscating code at all, but merely downloaded and evaluated the JavaScript Google's web client uses to deobfuscate. The result is the same: youtube-dl circumvents copyright access controls and is therefore illegal.

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.

xorcist 6y ago
No court has found any of the mentioned software to be illegal so far, anywhere. They are all interchangeable. Should one implementation be found problematic, in theory it can be swapped with another. It's not comparable to DRM, where a particular software can be licensed for a particular digital protection mechanism. In this case either they all are, or none are.
- nkrisc 6y ago
  You're still just focused on technical implementation and not the intent behind actions, which is also important and will likely be considered by the courts. While there is no technical difference, there is quite a difference of intent between watching a streaming video and downloading it to circumvent copy-protection.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

That would make little sense because the tool itself doesn't have anything to do with watching videos. It only downloads them, or pieces of them, and does some format and metadata conversion. The name describes precisely what it does: it downloads data.

Liskni_si 6y ago
That's not entirely true. youtube-dl, used as a library in a media player like mpv, is quite literally used for watching videos.

majewsky 6y ago

youtube-dl is used for reasons other than just watching videos. For example, journalists use it to download videos from YouTube to edit them into their news stories. Data scientists are using it to download videos for automated analysis in quantities larger than any of the involved scientists could ever watch. Both are not "watching" in the narrow sense implied by the word, but not copyright violations either because they probably qualify as fair use.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
The point is that youtube-dl does exactly the same thing as every other method of watching the video. You can't watch the video -- by any means -- without downloading it first. The uses you list may not be "watching" in a particular sense of the word, but they are "watching" in the same sense of the word that is relevant to using a web browser -- the only sense that would apply to YouTube.
- bitwize 6y ago
  It doesn't matter. YouTube's Standard License authorizes certain videos to be viewed only by streaming through YouTube's web player or an authorized client. This is enforced by obfuscating code in the player. By circumventing that code, youtube-dl veers into "illegal piracy tool" territory. Note that it wouldn't matter if youtube-dl contained no deobfuscating code at all, but merely downloaded and evaluated the JavaScript Google's web client uses to deobfuscate. The result is the same: youtube-dl circumvents copyright access controls and is therefore illegal.