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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 sto
by 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 agoThe 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 agoIt 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.